WILMINGTON — A New Hanover County Superior Court judge sentenced two habitual felons this week.
Judge John E. Nobles sentenced Bennie Lee Graham, 37, and Mark Anthony Canty, 48, on unrelated charges. Both Canty and Graham have had at least three successive felony convictions since the age of 18. For that reason, both men were indicted as habitual felons.
Mark Anthony Canty
Canty pleaded guilty to selling heroin, possession of cocaine and with intent to sell, and possession of a controlled substance while in New Hanover County Jail.
Canty was arrested on April 24, 2015, for selling $70 worth of heroin. Detectives with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Canty again on Nov. 27, 2015, during a traffic stop where they found crack cocaine, packaging for cocaine and heroin, Oxycodone tablets and several hundred dollars concealed in Canty’s shoe and under his vehicle’s floorboard.
Canty was arrested a third time on April 10, 2016, after Sheriff’s deputies found him “shouting vulgar expletives at surrounding passersby.” Canty was taken to jail, where a Schedule I controlled substance was found on his person.
Canty was sentenced to between 117 and 153 months.
Bennie Lee Graham
Graham pleaded guilty to trafficking heroin and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell.
In February 2016, the vice and narcotics unit of the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office received confidential information that Graham was trafficking in heroin and selling firearms.
On March 4, the same source tipped detectives off that Graham was operated out of the Extended Stay Hotel in Wilmington. Detectives found Graham exiting his room, smoking what appeared to be marijuana. After Graham consented to a search, detectives found marijuana, heroin and pharmaceutical pills, as well as paraphernalia for preparing and packaging narcotics.
Graham was sentenced to between 90 and 120 months.
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