Mid-trial guilty plea in NL heroin sale case

State won’t pursue additional charges

Fifty-two-year-old Ernesto Quinones of New London pleaded guilty to selling heroin Wednesday prior to the start of his second day on trial in New London Superior Court.

Judge Hillary B. Strackbein sentenced him to six years in prison for one count of sale of heroin. Quinones has been incarcerated since April 2015, when he was arrested by the Statewide Narcotics Task Force after police said he sold heroin to a confidential informant during two controlled purchases.

Quinones accepted a mid-trial plea deal knowing Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Paul J. Narducci was about to broadcast to the jury a video of an interrogation of Quinones in which, according to testimony, Quinones spoke with police in a “forthright and cordial” manner after being arrested in April 2015.

In taking his case to trial, Quinones had turned down an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of four years in prison followed by six years of special parole. The state will not be prosecuting other pending charges, including violation of probation.

Quinones had fired four attorneys while his case was pending and was representing himself when the trial began Tuesday. He had submitted and argued pretrial motions — none of which was granted — and selected jurors. After beginning cross-examination of the state’s first witness, he asked the trial judge, Barbara Bailey Jongbloed, if attorney Wade Luckett could take over. Luckett, one of the attorneys he had fired, was sitting with him as “stand-by counsel” in case he needed legal advice. The judge allowed Luckett to take over.

Quinones, who had a prior conviction for selling drugs and several drunken-driving convictions, said he got back into drugs after he was injured and prescribed medication. He had been using Suboxone at the time of his arrest, according to testimony.

“I understand my responsibility, and that’s why it went the way it went,” he said.

The task force had searched his home at 115 Blinman St. and seized $8,000 from a bank safety deposit box in his name. After he provided the state with information that he had received some money from a non-drug transaction, the state agreed to return half the money to him.

The prosecutor said Quinones “seems to be a changed man.”

“I think this is a good disposition,” Narducci said in his sentencing remarks. “It does serve as a punishment. It does serve as a deterrent and it does allow Mr. Quinones to head on the path to rehabilitation.”