A retired Maine State Police trooper accused of dealing drugs suspected he might be under investigation just hours before his arrest during an arranged drug buy Wednesday night, court documents show.
Jeffrey Linscott, 51, was taken to the Cumberland County Jail but was freed late Thursday after posting $50,000 cash bail. He faces charges of aggravated trafficking in fentanyl, trafficking in fentanyl and cocaine, and possession of fentanyl.
Linscott’s court file does not indicate if he has hired a lawyer. He answered the door at his Buxton home when a reporter knocked Friday, but would not answer questions and ordered the reporter to leave his property.
Linscott sold heroin and cocaine in two separate transactions to undercover agents with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency in Windham in October, according to an affidavit filed with the court by an MDEA agent. Agents arranged another buy of $300 worth of heroin Wednesday and, the document says, Linscott initially agreed to meet in the parking lot of the Hannaford grocery store in Gorham that evening.
But, according to the affidavit, Linscott sent a text message to the police informant who was posing as a buyer, saying that he didn’t want to meet at Hannaford. In an exchange of texts, he agreed to meet instead at a convenience store parking lot.
There, the document said, Linscott got in the informant’s car and demanded that the informant lift his shirt and checked the informant to see if he was wearing a wire.
After apparently satisfying himself that the transaction wasn’t being recorded, the document said, Linscott told the informant to follow him to another location, which turned out to be the Hannaford parking lot. While following Linscott, the informant called MDEA agents who had been watching the meeting to tell them of the change in plans. Those agents followed Linscott and the informant to the new location where, according to the document, the sale of fentanyl was completed and Linscott was arrested.
The powder that Linscott allegedly sold to the informant was confirmed to be fentanyl, the document said, according to a field test done by an MDEA agent. The affidavit also said that when Linscott was being frisked by MDEA agents, they found a plastic box in his pocket containing three knotted plastic bags containing a tan powder. According to the document, that powder matched the fentanyl that Linscott is accused of selling to the informant.
Fentanyl was initially developed as a painkiller and is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin. State officials say the drug is responsible for more than half of the 376 fatal drug overdoses in Maine last year.
Linscott retired as a trooper in 2010 after 22 years with the state police, including 13 years as a homicide detective.
The documents on file don’t indicate how MDEA agents came to suspect Linscott of dealing drugs.
The spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety said Thursday that MDEA agents have been investigating a group of people, including Linscott, suspected of dealing drugs in Cumberland County and more arrests are expected in the case.
Linscott qualified for a pension based on 25 years of service in November 2010 by paying to apply his time in the military to the 22 years he was a state trooper.
Linscott asked to be reassigned from detective work to patrol duties in 2008, officials said. Michael Edes, who headed the state troopers union during the time that Linscott was with the state police, said that’s a common tactic for state police officers who are planning to retire. It allows them to boost their income with overtime assignments that end up increasing their retirement pay because pensions are calculated on a formula that is based on a state trooper’s three highest-earning years.
Edes said Linscott was working as a truck driver after his retirement, but said he didn’t know much more about his post-retirement activities.
Linscott is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Jan. 25.
Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at:
emurphy@pressherald.com
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