Former Lawrence civilian police dispatcher, boyfriend charged with drug trafficking | Merrimack Valley

LAWRENCE — A woman who worked as a civilian dispatcher for the Lawrence Police Department was among the people arrested in the major Merrimack Valley drug bust announced by the attorney general Thursday.

Maricelys Carrion Ramos, 34, of Lawrence, faces numerous drug charges, including trafficking fentanyl and cocaine, and illegal possession and distribution of narcotics, police Chief Roy Vasque said.

In addition to 760 grams of fentanyl, a man-made opioid often blamed for overdoses, Ramos allegedly had two kilos of cocaine hidden under the passenger’s seat of her car when she was pulled over by state police early Monday morning. 

Ramos worked taking phone calls for the police department for just under a year, Vasque said. He said she was placed on administrative leave on May 27 after she was arrested and charged in a domestic violence case not related to the drug charges brought against her this week.

In the wake of the drug trafficking charges, Vasque said he has fired Ramos. An audit is being conducted to see what information Ramos viewed in local, state and federal law enforcement records while she worked at the police department, the chief said.

“It’s important for us to see what she accessed,” he said.

Ramos and her boyfriend, Jocheiry Acevedo Hernandez, 31, of Methuen, were charged Monday in the regional drug roundup and arraigned in Ayer District Court.

Hernandez is also charged with trafficking fentanyl and cocaine, illegal possession and distribution of narcotics and other charges, according to state police records.

Both Ramos and Hernandez have been held without bail due to previous pending cases, according to state police.

Mayor Daniel Rivera, in a statement released Friday, stressed Ramos was fired from the police department. 

“Miss Carrion-Ramos was employed by the city of Lawrence for just shy of one year. Citizens of the city of Lawrence need to know that this is not a reflection of the department as a whole. The chief, the command staff and the unions have been working hard to professionalize our department with trainings, progressive discipline and the establishment of a professional standards unit,” Rivera said. 

Law enforcement officials announced Thursday they had broken up the local narcotics ring, arresting 14 people and seizing large amounts of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl. Twelve of those people were scheduled to be arraigned at Lawrence District Court. The other two, Ramos and Hernandez, were arraigned in Ayer District Court, according to state police. 

Ramos was driving in Westford on Interstate 495 north when she was pulled over by a state trooper just after midnight Monday. Trooper Stephen Durant wrote that he observed “marked lanes violations” and pulled Ramos over, according to his report filed in Ayer District Court. 

Durant wrote Ramos appeared very nervous and was shaking as he spoke to her. Hernandez was not wearing a seatbelt and was pretending to be asleep in the passenger’s seat, Durant wrote. 

Ramos told police she’d gone to Waterbury, Connecticut, to see family and was heading back home. But the trooper said he saw a bag appearing to contain a white substance “underneath the center console,” according to the report. 

Trooper Michael Traister, who also arrived at the scene, recognized Hernandez as someone he’d previously arrested for trafficking cocaine, according to the report. 

Ramos told the troopers there was nothing illegal in her car and “that she worked for the Lawrence Police Department as a dispatcher.” 

“She also stated that she was having a really tough time and going through a lot in her life but denied any narcotics use,” according to the report. 

The troopers found a small bag in the car they believed to be fentanyl. They also called for a K-9 officer from the Westford Police Department to search the car.

An “abnormal bump” was seen in the car’s floor carpet underneath the passenger’s seat, according to the report. 

“Underneath the carpet I located a large plastic bag containing a white powdery substance believed to be fentanyl,” Durant wrote. 

The K-9 also hit on an area underneath the passenger’s seat where two, large rectangular items were wrapped in duct tape – believed to be two kilos of cocaine, according to state police. 

Ramos and Hernandez were placed under arrest and taken to the state police barracks in Concord for booking. 

During booking, Ramos told the troopers Hernandez did not know about the illegal substances in the car. She would not provide the name, but said she met someone in Waterbury who gave her the substance that she thought was marijuana, according to the report. 

State police said Ramos and Hernandez’s arrests were among those made during a two-year-long investigation that involved more than 150 local, state and federal law enforcement officials. They targeted narcotics distribution and sales in New England, police said.

Authorities said investigators seized more than 24 kilos of narcotics, about $100,000 cash and four handguns during raids Wednesday at 14 undisclosed locations in Methuen and Lawrence.

Attorney General Maura Healey called the bust the “largest take down of a major opioid trafficking operation” in the history of her office. Law enforcement officials said investigators used undercover agents and high-tech surveillance techniques to unravel a “sophisticated narcotics operation that spanned the region and was overseen by higher ups as far away as New Jersey.”

Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter @EagleTribJill.