LEWISTON – A former Lewiston man has been sentenced to 300 years in prison in New Jersey for killing a family of four during a botched robbery three years ago.

Edward McDonald was sentenced in a New Jersey courtroom this week for the January 2005 stabbing deaths of a couple and their two young daughters in Jersey City. The 28-year-old McDonald was convicted in March.

Maine drug agents said McDonald was once a key player in a drug trafficking network that provided cocaine to the Lewiston-Auburn area.

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency officials said McDonald and another man were caught in 2001 with more than a pound of cocaine outside a mobile home in Poland.