Bangor man guilty in cocaine case

BANGOR – A federal jury on Wednesday found a Bangor man guilty of being part of a cocaine distribution ring following a three-day trial.

William Ahrendt, 45, was found guilty of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and cocaine base used to make crack.

He defended himself in U.S. District Court in Bangor after previously firing two local attorneys appointed to defend him.

Ahrendt put his hands in his pockets and nodded his head up and down as the jury verdict was read. He appeared to be disappointed by the verdict but did not comment on the jury’s decision.

U.S. Marshals do not allow prisoners to speak with reporters.

The jury of seven men and two women deliberated for about 90 minutes before delivering their verdict. At one point, the jury asked to examine the cocaine and cocaine base admitted into evidence. Court officers took it into the jury room.

After the jury was dismissed, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock ordered Ahrendt held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service until a presentence report is completed. A sentencing date has not been set.

The defendant faces a minimum of five years and up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million.

A convicted sex offender, Ahrendt has been held in the Penobscot County Jail since he was indicted in May 2004 for being part of a cocaine distribution ring out of Boston.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Perry told the jury on Monday in his opening statement that cocaine was distributed from the residences Ahrendt rented on York Street and, later on Garland Street. Ahrendt also helped transform cocaine base powder into crack, the prosecutor said.

In his opening statement, Ahrendt told the jury that he was not guilty of conspiracy because he was not involved in “any advanced planning.”

The defendant also said that he was not allowed to go to other locations as some of his co-defendants were.

“I was on the outside [of the conspiracy],” he said. “I just allowed everybody and anybody to come into my home.”

The charges against Ahrendt stemmed from an April 2004 investigation, when members of the Bangor Special Enforcement Team learned from a confidential informant arrested during surveillance of the Garland Street residence that one of Ahrendt’s co-conspirators, was to meet the suppliers at the bus station on Union Street in Bangor.

Two men and a woman were bringing a new shipment of cocaine to Bangor from Boston, according to Perry.

Police observed Theresa Mayhew, 26, of Levant meeting the trio at a bus station and placing luggage in the trunk of her car, according to court documents.

A short time later, police pulled Mayhew over and searched the trunk. Inside a duffel bag in the trunk, officers found a pound of cocaine.

Clifton Davis, 24, of Potecasi, N.C., Kelvin Deloatch, 23, of Woodland, N.C., and Chelsea Andrews, 24, of Brookline, Mass., were arrested along with Mayhew.

The subsequent investigation led Bangor police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to Ahrendt and Randy Brimley, 26, of Roxbury, Mass.

Brimley’s trial on drug conspiracy charges is scheduled to begin next week in U.S. District Court in Bangor.

He also is facing similar charges in Massachusetts. His trial there has been delayed until after the trial in Maine.

Mayhew, Davis, Andrews, and Deloatch pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges in connection with the drug conspiracy. They admitted that they sold cocaine out of Ahrendt’s residences on Garland and York streets and from rooms at local motels.

Andrews is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Sentencing dates for her co-defendants have not been set.

Each faces between five and 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million.