A 24-year-old man arrested March 15 on suspicion of dealing heroin and fentanyl linked to the overdose death of a St. George man faces federal charges that could put him in prison for life.
Cameron Soto of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, was charged Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Portland by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with distribution of fentanyl resulting in death, distribution of fentanyl and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The prosecution has asked the federal court to order Soto held in jail until trial. He has been held in jail since his March arrest, unable to raise the $50,000 cash bail set by a state judge. He was moved from the Knox County Jail in Rockland to the Cumberland County Jail in Portland.
Soto and Trevor Teves, 18, were stopped and arrested March 15 in the parking lot of Town Line Market in Warren after Soto sold drugs in St. George to a confidential informant, according to an affidavit filed in court by the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. Teves was charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and released on bail, according to a statement from the Maine Department of Public Safety.
According to a March affidavit filed in a Knox County court by the MDEA, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office responded to a residence on Ridge Road in St. George, where 48-year-old Edward Rogers died after injecting heroin or fentanyl.
Police searched the victim’s cellphone and saw messages from a person whose contact name was “Pollie.” MDEA reported in the affidavit that Soto goes by the name “Paulie.” There was a message from “Pollie” on Rogers’ phone shortly after the time that emergency medical workers arrived at the residence where Rogers overdosed, asking how he was.
Soto and Teves had been staying at a nearby residence on Ridge Road, according to police. The following day, police made a controlled buy from Soto, using a confidential informant.
The gun possession charge was added when the MDEA searched Soto’s cellphone and found photographs of him with guns.
A loaded 9 mm Smith & Wesson handgun was found at Teves’ feet when the vehicle was stopped by police. The cellphone photos showed Soto holding that handgun, as well as a rifle that was in the residence where he and Teves were staying in St. George.
The minimum sentence for the distribution of fentanyl resulting in death is 20 years in prison with a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Soto was released from the Maine State Prison in Warren on Dec. 30, 2016. He had been sentenced in September 2014 in Knox County to three years in prison for dealing crack cocaine in December 2013 in Rockland. Soto was arrested at the Trade Winds Motor Inn at that time, after police responded to a fight. The fight began when a local man confronted Soto for selling drugs to the man’s sister.
Soto also had a drug conviction in Massachusetts in 2012.
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