BANGOR – The Massachusetts ringleader of a cocaine distribution network in Bangor was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 14 years in federal prison on drug charges.

Randy “Big” Brimley, 26, of Roxbury, Mass., also was sentenced to four years of supervised release after his release from prison.

“The harm that you caused has not stopped just because you have been stopped [from selling cocaine],” U.S. District Judge John Woodcock said Wednesday in sentencing Brimley. “The people who bought the drugs you supplied remain under a life sentence.”

The judge said that although expanding his drug operation from Boston into Bangor may have been a “business decision” for Brimley, the operation has had a long-lasting impact on the Bangor area.

“Your operation was like a lethal, uncontrolled virus in this community,” the judge said. “It infected many young people – the sons and daughters of members of this community.”

Brimley admitted in January to leading a drug distribution ring that operated out of two Bangor residents and several of the city’s motels when he pleaded guilty in federal court in Bangor to conspiracy to distribute and possess cocaine.

He faced a minimum of five years in federal prison and a maximum of 40 years on the charge. He also could have been ordered to pay a fine of up to $2 million.

Brimley has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts stemming from his alleged drug selling activities in that state. A trial date has not been set.

He faces a minimum of 20 years in prison on those charges.

It will be up to a federal judge in Boston whether he serves the sentence imposed in Massachusetts after or at the same time as the sentence imposed in Maine.

The charges against Brimley stemmed from an April 2004 investigation, when members of the Bangor Special Enforcement Team learned from a confidential informant that a new shipment of cocaine was to be brought to Bangor on a bus from Boston.

At the bus station on Union Street, police observed Theresa Mayhew, 26, of Levant picking up three other people at a bus station in Bangor. Police found a pound of cocaine in the luggage.

Mayhew was arrested, along with Clifton Davis, 24, of Potecasi, N.C., Kelvin Deloatch, 23, of Woodland, N.C., and Chelsea Andrews, 24, of Brookline, Mass. All are serving sentences in federal prisons for their part in the operation.

After those arrests, Bangor police linked Brimley to William Ahrendt, 45, of Bangor and the operation after going through trash outside Ahrendt’s residence on Garland Street.

Ahrendt, a convicted sex offender who acted as his own attorney during a federal jury trial in September, was sentenced earlier this year to 17 1/2 years in federal prison for his role in the drug distribution ring.