WICOMICO HEROIN DEALER SENTENCED TO TEN YEARS IN PRISON

On June 12, 2014, Shamar Ralee Cropper, age 23, of Salisbury, Maryland, was convicted and sentenced on one count of possession with the intent to distribute heroin and one count of possession of cocaine. A Wicomico County Circuit Court judge sentenced Cropper to ten years of active incarceration in the Maryland Division of Corrections for the heroin offense. Cropper was sentenced to a 4 year suspended sentence for the cocaine offense. Upon release, Cropper will be on 3 years of supervision by the Division of Parole and Probation.

Cropper had been pending charges related to the traffic stop of a vehicle in which he was a passenger. After noting numerous indicators criminal activity, investigators contacted a police K-9 unit to assist. The drug sniffing dog alerted officers to the presence of illicit drugs concealed in the vehicle. Inside of the vehicle, officers recovered a pipe used to smoke crack cocaine, a hypodermic syringe and trace amounts of cocaine. Cropper, the driver and another passenger were arrested based upon the recovered items. After being transported to the Maryland State Police barracks for processing, Cropper struggled with officers who were attempting to search him. Cropper was eventually restrained and searched. This search revealed that Cropper was concealing a plastic baggie in the cheeks of his buttocks. This plastic baggie contained another plastic baggie which in turn contained 16 separate baggies containing heroin. The baggie recovered from Cropper’s buttocks was also found to contain a second baggie which contained cocaine and a third baggie containing oxycodone.

Wicomico County State’s Attorney Matthew A. Maciarello commended the Maryland State Police Gang Enforcement Unit, the Salisbury Police Department’s Safe Streets Unit, and the Fruitland Police Department K-9 Unit for their work in the investigation and prosecution of this case. Mr. Maciarello also thanked James L. Britt who prosecuted Cropper.