RALEIGH — Wilmington resident Richard Stinson, 37, has been sentenced to 192 months imprisonment for his role overseeing a “stash house” to traffic heroin.
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Robert J. Higdon, Jr., announced the sentencing Wednesday afternoon, which also included 5 years of supervised release.
In July of 2018, Stinson pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense, according to a release sent Higdon’s office.
According to the investigation, this drug trafficking organization was importing heroin from New York to a “stash house” on Northern Boulevard in Wilmington, between Greenfield Lake and the Cape Fear River.
“Stinson was in charge of this ‘stash house’ where he oversaw people bagging heroin which was sold in Wilmington,” according to the release. “Stinson was on parole out of New York for manslaughter and had picked up some of the heroin while on a trip to meet his parole officer.”
In April 2016, the Wilmington Police Department (WPD) Narcotics Unit served a search warrant on the stash house, where Stinson and a female were found in the bathroom of the main house, according to the release.
“Stinson was next to a loaded stolen .45 caliber handgun,” the release stated. “In Stinson’s bedroom, law enforcement found a key to a safe and two handguns. In the kitchen officers discovered approximately 1000 empty bags ready to be filled with heroin. In a safe in an apartment in the rear of the property, law enforcement found more than 30 grams of raw heroin, 867 bindles of packaged heroin and more than $1,500.”
Stinson was held accountable for more than 280 grams of heroin at the time of the conspiracy, according to the release.
The investigation of this case was conducted by the FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force and the WPD Narcotics Unit.
