Binghamton man pleads guilty to meth charges for packages sent to Alexandria Bay

Jonathon Wheeler, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
·2 min read

Jun. 10—ALEXANDRIA BAY — A Binghamton man pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to attempted possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and faces up to life in prison.

As part of his guilty plea, Adam Baldwin, 41, admitted that he received shipments of methamphetamine to sell and that he had the shipments delivered to a store in Alexandria Bay in September.

In October, law enforcement intercepted two packages addressed to Mr. Baldwin that contained 1,070 grams of pure methamphetamine, the Department of Justice said.

According to the criminal complaint, a detective with the Santa Anna Police Department in California was informed on Oct. 7 that a package due to be shipped from a UPS Store in that city contained 2 pounds of methamphetamine. The package was addressed to Adam Baldwin and the address was the UPS Store on Route 12 in Alexandria Bay.

A few days later, a federal agent and a detective with the Metro-Jefferson Drug Task Force was notified that a second package was addressed to Mr. Baldwin and had been delivered to the Alexandria Bay UPS store.

The task force detective partially opened the package and allegedly found a stuffed animal, and a K-9 narcotics detector conducted a free air sniff and alerted. This led to a search warrant for the package.

Inside of the stuffed animal, police say they found a vacuumed-sealed plastic package, and the content tested positive for methamphetamine. The drugs were then removed from the package and a noncontraband object that was around the same weight was put into the package and was resealed.

Mr. Baldwin then showed up a few days later to retrieve the packages, one that was delivered on Oct. 9 and the other that had been seized Oct. 7 in California.

An officer noticed Mr. Baldwin put the delivered package in the bed of his truck. When he left Alexandria Bay on Interstate 81 southbound, he was followed by law enforcement. Mr. Baldwin was observed pulling over to fix a tarp on the trailer he was towing. A marked Jefferson County sheriff's deputy vehicle pulled over to ask him what he was doing, and Mr. Baldwin was then taken into custody. He also allegedly told police that someone had offered to pay him to deliver the package to someone else. Mr. Baldwin admitted to police then that he received and delivered two other packages believed to have contained 1 pound of methamphetamine.

Mr. Baldwin is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 12, and faces a minimum of 10 years in prison with a maximum sentence of life in prison. He also faces at least five years of post-release supervision and up to a lifetime of supervised release as well as a maximum fine of $10 million.