GOSHEN, N.Y. (AP) - A former city fire official in upstate New York has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and operating as a major drug trafficker.
Former Middletown Fire Department Lt. Paul Smith made the pleas in Orange County Court on Monday.
The Times-Herald Record reports that Smith’s attorney negotiated a sentence of 8 1/3 to 25 years for the conspiracy charge.
Sentencing on the trafficker charge is pending. Smith could face a sentence of 15 years or more for that charge.
Smith admitted in court he knowingly possessed cocaine worth more than $75,000.
Smith, of Port Jervis, and a codefendant had been indicted Friday.
Forty-eight-year-old Smith was charged in early February with being a major drug trafficker as the ringleader of a cocaine-dealing motorcycle club and another operation that sold pills containing fentanyl.
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