Portland, Maine: United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced that Christopher Coombs, 44, of Westbrook, Maine, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court by Judge George Z. Singal to five years in prison for possessing with intent to distribute alpha-PHP (a bath salt) and obstruction of justice and a consecutive one year in prison for Coombs’s violation of the terms of supervised release imposed on him in connection with a 2009 drug trafficking conviction. Coombs pled guilty on Nov. 10, 2015.
According to court records, on Oct. 31, 2014, law enforcement officers conducted a controlled delivery of about 500 grams of alpha-PHP to Coombs at his residence in Westbrook. This package was sent from China and was intercepted by customs officials in New York. After Coombs accepted the package, he was arrested. Following his arrest, he directed his wife to delete certain emails that were relevant to the investigation.
This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Westbrook Police Department, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
