Loudon Man Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy To Distribute Methamphetamine

          CONCORD - Michael Bean, 33, of Loudon, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, United States Attorney Scott W. Murray announced today.  

          According to court documents and statements made in court, Bean and his girlfriend, Katie-Jo Waters, were members of a conspiracy in which supplier Edward Espejo, of Las Vegas, Nevada, shipped packages of nearly pure methamphetamine to New Hampshire.  Bean and Waters received packages containing methamphetamine in Pembroke, New Hampshire, and distributed the drugs to New Hampshire buyers.  Bean and Waters would then wire the proceeds of drugs sales to Espejo in Las Vegas to purchase additional drugs.  Between January and May 2018, Bean and Waters wired a total of more than $28,000 to Espejo in Las Vegas to buy methamphetamine.  On May 2, 2018, postal inspectors intercepted a package from Espejo to be delivered to Waters that contained one pound of pure methamphetamine.     

          Bean is scheduled to be sentenced on March 5, 2019.

          Waters and Espejo previously pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. 

          “Methamphetamine is a dangerous drug that is appearing in New Hampshire with increasing frequency” said U.S. Attorney Murray.  “Because of this drug’s great potential for causing harm to our community, we will aggressively prosecute dealers. Thanks to the hard work of the law enforcement officers in this case, this substantial methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy has been dismantled.” 

          “The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has no interest in being the unwitting accomplice to anyone using the U.S. Mail to distribute illegal narcotics such as methamphetamine,” said U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Inspector in Charge, Joseph W. Cronin of the Boston Division. “We will work diligently to identify and remove illegal drug shipments and their proceeds from the mail.”

          This matter was investigated by the DEA and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Davis.

          This case was supported by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF).  The OCDETF program is a federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.  

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