BANGOR, Maine — A Hudson woman was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court to three years in federal prison for the role she played in helping distribute a large amount of bath salts in Bangor.

Alyssa Farrington, 21, who pleaded guilty to drug and gun charges last year, also was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock to three years of supervised release after she completes her prison term, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.





Farrington’s ex-boyfriend, Ryan Orton, 30, was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison on similar charges. At his sentencing, Woodcock said Orton, with Farrington’s help, introduced a “staggering” amount of drugs into the area that “washed the Bangor community in an extraordinary ocean of bath salts” between October 2011 and early April 2012.

Farrington last year admitted that she sold bath salts at Orton’s direction, wired money to purchase the drug from China and bought guns for him since he was prohibited from buying them himself. She pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute bath salts, money laundering conspiracy, and aiding and abetting a felon’s possession of firearms.

Her attorney, Charles W. Hodsdon II of Bangor, said after the sentencing that his client and her mother told the judge Friday that her relationship with Orton began when he was 27 and she was 19. Their relationship changed once Orton began using bath salts and became physically and emotionally abusive, Hodsdon said.

Farrington first was charged two years ago in state court with trafficking in synthetic hallucinogenic drugs, furnishing synthetic hallucinogenic drugs, trafficking in marijuana and trafficking in psilocybin. She was released on $750 cash bail and went into federal custody Aug. 21, when she waived indictment and pleaded guilty to the charges.

She is scheduled to be sentenced next week on the state charges at the Penobscot Judicial Center. Farrington is expected to serve the state sentence while serving the federal one.

Farrington faced up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million on the drug conspiracy charge. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Casey, who prosecuted the case, recommended Farrington spend nearly seven years in federal prison.

Hodsdon recommended the three years the judge imposed.

The investigation was conducted by the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.