Lynn man sentenced for cocaine trafficking

LAWRENCE – A Lynn man found guilty of dealing cocaine will spend up to seven and a half years in prison.Duane S. Collins, 48, of 154 Lynnway, #207 was caught in Peabody nearly two years ago and was found guilty earlier this week of trafficking over 28 grams of cocaine by a Lawrence Superior Court jury.He was sentenced Thursday morning to serve not less than five years and not more than seven and one-half years in state prison by Judge Leila R. Kern.However, the judge ordered that the punishment will not commence until he completes a recently imposed 18-month jail term he is currently serving on a Middlesex County drug case for violating his probationary terms,Assistant District Attorney Michael A. Patten asked for a higher punishment, 8-to-10-years in prison, based on Collins’ record and prior drug trafficking conviction in 1999.Defense lawyer Russell L. Sobelman tried unsuccessfully to persuade Kern for an immediate straight five-year term, which is the minimum mandatory punishment for the crime, and eliminate the 18-month sentence he is now serving, but she declined.Collins was arrested July 6, 2006 after police discovered 38 grams of cocaine, nearly two ounces, in 34 individual bags in his red Ford Explorer.Police were called to Su Changs restaurant at 373 Lowell St., a little after 5 p.m., on a report of a drunken and disorderly patron at the bar.When Peabody Patrolman Gerald Fitzgerald tried to place Collins into a cab, he refused to leave and police arrested him for disorderly conduct and intoxication.Before towing his vehicle from the parking lot, police conducted a search and found the cocaine on the passenger’s seat in a camera case.Collins, a lobsterman by trade, testified that the cocaine was not his, that it belonged to two men he had picked up in Gloucester that night, but the jury was not swayed.The judge credited Collins the 12 days he has spent in jail awaiting trial on the case.