Suboxone suspect enters plea agreement
L’ANSE — One of the seventeen suspects arrested after a major drug bust in December appeared in Baraga County Circuit Court this morning to enter a plea agreement.
44-year-old Thomas Bianco pleaded guilty to one count of delivery or manufacture of a schedule 1, 2, or 3 controlled substance — in this case, the drug suboxone. That charge is a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Bianco admitted to exchanging his prescribed suboxone with another party for money in April of 2014. As part of his plea agreement, the two other drug charges he was facing will be dropped along with the habitual offender status on his case. Bianco will be sentenced in four weeks.
He was arrested in December along with sixteen others after a year-long joint investigation between the Upper Peninsula Substance Enforcement Team, the FBI, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.