BARRE — A Northfield woman has been sentenced to 10 months to serve for selling drugs out of her home on two occasions.
Rebecca Lynn Martin, 40, was sentenced Wednesday in Washington County criminal court in Barre to two to five years, all suspended except for 10 months to serve on a felony count of cocaine possession, two misdemeanor counts of dispensing a regulated drug in a dwelling and a misdemeanor count of violating conditions of release. Martin pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this month.
She will get credit for time served and has been held at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington since October.
According to court records, police executed a search warrant on Martin’s King Street home in April 2021. Police said a witness reported he had purchased drugs from that location.
Investigators found 47 grams of a substance that field-tested positive for cocaine inside Martin’s bedroom, according to court records, as well as a scale and baggies typically used to weigh and package drugs for sale.
Police said Martin’s boyfriend at the time reported she was selling drugs out of the home. He allowed police to search a cellphone he and Martin shared, according to court records, where police said they found conversations Martin had with others about drug transactions.
Police executed another search warrant on the home in June 2021 where they found a small amount of cocaine and loose pills, including the muscle relaxer Baclofen and the antidepressant Trazodone, according to court records. Police said Martin was found sitting on the toilet fully clothed with the toilet recently flushed and it appeared she had just flushed other drugs that may have been in the home at the time.
Another search warrant was executed on the home in October, according to court records. Police said inside they found two men from Massachusetts, who have since picked up drug charges for their involvement in the activities at the home; another man who was said to be helping sell drugs for the two other men, who has also since been charged; as well as 61 grams of a substance that field-tested positive for cocaine and three grams of a substance that field-tested positive for fentanyl.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault had sought a sentence of a year to serve for Martin. Her attorney, Colin Seaman, argued for a lesser sentence.
Thibault had Northfield Detective Karie Tucker testify during Wednesday’s hearing. Tucker said a total of five search warrants were executed at Martin’s home during drug investigations. She said it would be rare for police to execute two search warrants at the same home, let alone five.
Seaman called a longtime friend of Martin’s to the stand who testified the friend is now sober and significantly reduced contact with Martin once Martin started using drugs again a couple years ago after about 10 years of her own sobriety because the friend didn’t want to relapse. The friend talked about how well Martin does when she is sober and how Martin has said she needed to be behind bars to stop what she was doing.
Thibault said Martin’s story may have begun with her own substance use, but it ballooned into something different. He said not everyone who uses goes on to become a “middler,” or facilitator, for drug dealers.
“Ms. Martin made the conscious and deliberate choice to do that by opening her house to people from out of state who are injecting poison and destruction into our communities. As a middler and enabler housing these individuals, Ms. Martin perpetuated the cycle of addiction that is ripping apart families and killing people in this very community,” the prosecutor said.
Thibault said what’s frustrating about this case is if it solely focused on that first search warrant in 2021, and if the conduct stopped there, then the sentence Martin is facing would have been focused exclusively on rehabilitation, on her learning a lesson and supporting her. But he said the behavior persisted, despite court intervention, admonishment and the embarrassment and audacity from having search warrants executed at her home multiple times.
Thibault submitted two letters from Martin’s neighbors talking about what they’ve been dealing with while Martin’s home was used to sell drugs. He said neighbors reported they had day-to-day concerns about what was going to happen at Martin’s home with people acting erratically and with the noise and traffic there.
Thibault said King Street is the access point to the town’s public parks complex and the town’s pool.
“It’s a place where kids and families congregate,” the prosecutor said.
He said Martin’s continued behavior despite more and more criminal charges demonstrates someone who either thought her conduct wouldn’t catch up to her, it didn’t matter or there wouldn’t be any consequences. Thibault said each of those is troubling for its own reasons.
Seaman pushed back on the idea that his client was making a conscious choice with an understanding of the consequences. He said since fentanyl has come into community, something more “insidious” has been pulling people through this drug process. He said with heroin, there was at least some ability to manage those cases, but with fentanyl, “It’s just hopeless.”
He said Martin’s situation spiraled out of her control to where she ended up getting used by others.
“Saying she’s enabling them. I mean, I’m not going to call her a victim, but I know that these are not situations where the (homeowners) are the ones with the power,” he said, adding it’s an unsafe situation where the resident is not going to call police for help.
Seaman said his client didn’t create the drug problem, she certainly added to it, and her neighbors have a right to be angry with her. He said this was Martin’s first time behind bars, and it’s hit her hard.
Martin fought back tears as she apologized for her actions. She said she knows what she did was wrong, but she compared drug addiction to an out-of-body experience.
“Your decision making, which you know how to do, becomes nonexistent because of the drug problem,” she said.
Martin said what she’s been doing for the past couple of years is not in her character when she’s sober.
Judge Kevin Griffin said one of his roles as a judge is to sign off on those search warrants that were executed on Martin’s home. Griffin said with Martin’s cases, he accepted that she was dealing with substance use issues. The judge said what was frustrating for him is he kept hoping releasing Martin back into the community would lead to her taking advantage of programs and services that are available that could have addressed those issues and helped find a way back into recovery.
He said there were a couple of conversations about getting Martin into treatment court, but they went nowhere. He said Martin continued to pick up charges, including violations of conditions of release, and then picked up another dispensing from a dwelling charge.
The judge said that was, “really hard for me to wrap my head around.”
Griffin said he has no illusions that taking Martin’s home off the market is going to stop someone from selling out of another home a couple of blocks away.
“I get that the war on drugs, for the most part, has been a failure. But still, for you to be facing either trial or sentencing for offenses like this and then continuing to do business as usual is just always a little stunning for me,” Griffin said.
He said once Martin is released, she’ll be placed on probation for five years. If she violates the terms of her probation, he said she faces a potential five-year sentence.
Griffin said he’s not a big believer of general deterrence when it comes to the sentences he imposes. He said he doesn’t think people are sitting at home paying attention to the sentences and letting them have an impact. But for Martin, he said he did believe she wanted to get out and did not want to go back.
Griffin said there needs to be punishment for Martin’s actions. But he said Martin may be eligible for the work camp through the Department of Corrections which could cut down the amount of time she serves, which will be dependent on Martin’s actions going forward.
The judge then sentenced Martin to 10 months to serve with credit for time served.
eric.blaisdell
@timesargus.com
