Probation, jail time for drug diversion

Published 9:34 pm Thursday, December 12, 2013

Diversion of a drug used to treat opioid addiction led to sentence of 30 days in prison and almost three years of supervised probation for a Raleigh man who used to live in Beaufort County.

Shawn Benjamin Carrow, 28, pleaded guilty to three counts of possession with intent to sell and deliver Suboxone in Beaufort County Superior Court Wednesday. Two charges were dismissed in a plea arrangement with the state.

On three separate occasions in the summer of 2012, Carrow was captured on audio and video by investigators with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office drug unit as he sold packages of the sublingual film to an informant. According to Assistant District Attorney Lloyd Williams’ summary of the case, Carrow would meet the informant in public places on Carolina Avenue in Washington, each time exchanging three packs of Suboxone for $100 the first time, then $90 the next two times. When investigators arrested Carrow at his residence, they found heroin residue in baggies in the defendant’s car, as well as spoons, burn marks in the dresser and paraphernalia indicating heroin use inside the home, Williams said.

“My client in 28 years old and is an addict,” defense attorney Mario Perez told Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. “He’s an addict, but I think he’s someone who can be saved. He just has to learn how to deal with those triggers that will cause him to relapse and do dumb things that will put him back in front of a judge.”

Perez said the Suboxone Carrow sold was provided to him by a drug treatment program in which he was enrolled at the time. Carrow has since moved to Raleigh and is involved in several recovery programs.

Sermons told Carrow he was “on the right track,” in regard to both his voluntary and court ordered involvement in drug treatment.

Sermons handed down two judgments that totaled 30 days in jail — with one day’s credit for time served — in either Beaufort or Wake counties, specifying that Carrow must obey a 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for the first six months of his probation and continue with the methadone program.

“After today, you will be subject to the habitual felon law,” Sermons warned Carrow.

In the state of North Carolina, any person who has been convicted, or pleaded guilty to, three felony offenses can be sentenced at a felony class level that is four classes higher than the principal felony for which the person was convicted.

Carrow received probation in August for an attempted larceny in downtown Raleigh.

There was no image available for Shawn Benjamin Carrow.