Police nab fentanyl in Southie speeding stop
State police taking inventory of a sedan they towed after catching a North Carolina woman speeding in South Boston found more than two pounds of fentanyl in the trunk, where the driver told them her luggage was packed.
Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said the heat-sealed brick of white chunky powder grabbed Monday was one of the largest single seizures of the potentially lethal opioid “in recent memory within Suffolk County.”
Police and prosecutor Frank Kanin estimated the street value of the 950 grams of fentanyl at between $62,000 and $100,000.
Mavis Horton, 51 — a private caretaker authorities said has no criminal record either in Massachusetts or the Tar Heel State — was ordered held yesterday on $50,000 cash bail by South Boston District Court Judge Michael C. Bolden after pleading not guilty to trafficking fentanyl. She was also cited for speeding and unlicensed operation of a vehicle. If she posts bail, Bolden said, she is to be placed on GPS-monitored house arrest and cannot leave Massachusetts.
Kanin requested $1 million bail for Horton.
“This is a very large amount of fentanyl,” Kanin told Bolden. “The street value would be around a hundred grand.”
Horton, he said, informed state police who pulled her over at 11:40 a.m. Monday near Day Boulevard and Farragut Road “that she was from North Carolina, was in town visiting family for Easter and was on her way back home. Officers noticed that her story changed as to when she was coming to Boston, where she was staying, and that she appeared to be physically nervous as they were talking.”
In their report, troopers noted that, “her hands were shaking as she handed over the license and registration and her carotid artery was visibly pulsing at a fast rate.” Police, Kanin said, arrested Horton once they found out she was not licensed to drive. Police said they clocked her driving the 2007 Toyota Avalon with North Carolina plates at 39 mph in a 30 mph zone.
Horton’s court-appointed attorney David Leon argued, “There’s nothing in her history to indicate that she would even be involved in this type of offense. She’s been working as a private care provider for the past two years down in North Carolina. Prior to that she was working as a cook. She was driving a car which isn’t owned by her, isn’t registered to her. There’s no indication that she’s even aware of what’s inside this car, including the drugs.”
Leon later told the Herald it wasn’t immediately clear to him who owned the car.
Also found in the car, police said, were a suitcase, clothing, multiple handbags and food.