Contact: Beth Stone
508-584-8120
BROCKTON – A Providence, R.I. man has been sentenced to State Prison after a jury convicted him of Trafficking in Marijuana, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz has announced.
After a three-day trial in Plymouth Superior Court, a jury deliberated for approximately 2 ½ hours yesterday before finding Michael Chen (DOB: 10/5/77) guilty of one count of Trafficking Marijuana Over 100 Pounds/Less than 2,000 Pounds. Judge Cornelius Moriarty sentenced Chen to serve two to 2 ½ years in State Prison.
On December 27, 2017, Wareham Police received a call from Cape Cod Express shipping company, who reported that they had received two suspicious crates believed to contain illegal narcotics. As part of the investigation, Wareham Police identified that the two suspicious crates were addressed to “Michael Chen.” Police further determined that
Chen had received approximately 10 similar shipments since 2017, all from the same California address. The packages were listed as containing “Plastics.”
Soon thereafter on December 27, 2017, Chen arrived at Cape Cod Express to take possession of the two crates and loaded them onto his Ford F250 pickup truck and police approached. Chen told officers he was not aware of what the crates contained, and consented to a search of his vehicle.
A police K-9 made a positive alert to the presence of narcotics when inspecting the items in the crate and Wareham Police opened the crates. Inside, police found a total of 112 vacuum sealed bricks of marijuana. The Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab analyzed the drugs and determined that there were a total of 109 pounds.
Chen was arrested and transported to Wareham Police. Police obtained a search warrant for Chen’s phone, which showed conversations consistent with narcotics distribution and photographs of packaged bricks of marijuana, similar to those found in the crates.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Brian Fahy and was investigated by Wareham Police Department and Lead Investigator Bryan Whalen.