A Boston-area meth dealer, who received the drug from wholesalers sometimes wrapped inside stuffed bunnies, was sentenced to a year and one day.
“I didn’t want to walk out with just that stuff in my hands. It’s not a good look,” Aaron Smith told investigators, according to court records, after they nabbed him with a pound of meth inside a paper bag as he exited the coffee shop where a criminal informant gave him his share of the latest buy in August 2019.
Smith, 34, of Reading, was sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole Jr. in federal court in Boston. Following prison, Smith will have three years of supervised release.
Smith pleaded guilty in May 2020 to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine and one count of the same for 50 grams or more.
Smith, who at one time lived on Cooper Street in the North End, according to court documents, worked with two other traffickers in the area to receive and distribute methamphetamine from wholesalers based in Phoenix and elsewhere. The other two people began working with law enforcement, according to court records, and their information led to the arrest of three others, including Smith.
One package from a Phoenix wholesaler, who used fictitious names and addresses on return labels, intercepted by investigators in April 2019 contained two baggies with a combined 936 grams of methamphetamine. One baggy was within a blanket and the other “inside a stuffed bunny rabbit,” according to a postal inspector affidavit.
While federal drug sentencing guidelines call for a 10-year minimum prison sentence for trafficking in 500 grams or more in mixtures containing meth, Judge O’Toole cited Smith’s participation in the court-run RISE — or Repair, Invest, Succeed and Emerge — Program at sentencing.
The program, which is only for those on pretrial release, was created by the federal district court for the district of Massachusetts and those who complete it “may be considered favorably at sentencing,” according to its program statement.
