BANGOR – Roscoe Sargent, 30, is expected to plead guilty to federal drug charges in U.S. District Court in Bangor today.

He faces up to 20 years in prison on drug possession charges and another five years on a firearms charge.

State drug agents arrested Sargent on Dec. 29, 2000, at his Market Street apartment in Bangor. Law enforcement officers seized 11 pounds of marijuana and 3 pounds of psilocybin, or psychedelic mushrooms, with an estimated street value of $30,3000, drug paraphernalia and a loaded shotgun.

Sargent was out on bail awaiting trial on Jan. 4, 2003, when he killed his wife, Heather Fliegelman Sargent, who was eight months pregnant, according to court testimony. His jury-waived trial in Penobscot County Superior Court for murder was held last week.

Defense attorney Christopher Largay of Bangor argued that because Sargent suffered from an abnormal condition of the mind when he stabbed his 20-year-old wife 47 times, the judge should find him not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter, a lesser charge.

Sargent pleaded not guilty to intentional or knowingly committing murder and murder by depraved indifference. If convicted of those charges, he faces possible life in prison. If convicted of manslaughter, he faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.

Maine Superior Court Justice E. Allen Hunter is not expected to issue his verdict for several weeks.

Police found Fliegelman Sargent’s body and four dead cats on Jan. 6, 2003, at the couple’s Bangor residence in the Rainbow Trailer Park on outer Ohio Street. That morning, Sargent turned himself in to federal authorities accompanied by Brett Baber, the Bangor attorney appointed to represent him on the drug charges.

The day Sargent was charged with his wife’s murder, Baber appeared in Boston before the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on the Maine U.S. Attorney’s appeal of the suppression of the evidence seized at the Market Street apartment. A three-judge panel overturned the suppression of the warrant in February 2003.

Sargent also challenged the evidence by charging that law enforcement officials seized more drugs from him than was reported in evidence logs, according to Baber. An official complaint was filed, the attorney said earlier this week, but the matter was dropped when Sargent was unable to complete a polygraph test because of the medical condition outlined by Largay in the murder trial.

A date for sentencing on the drug charges is expected to be set next month after a presentencing report is completed.

Most likely, Sargent would have to complete any federal sentence on the drug and weapon charges before he would begin serving a sentence if convicted in the death of his wife.