AUGUSTA — A city man nicknamed “Cheese” was arrested Thursday night on various drug charges following an investigation by Augusta police and Kennebec County sheriff’s deputies.
Ronald L. Granger, 30, was charged with two counts each of aggravated trafficking in heroin and unlawful possession of drugs and one count of unlawful trafficking in drugs.
According to an arrest affidavit by Detective Michael Bickford, a deputy with the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office, a confidential informant indicated that a man named “Cheese” had sent text messages saying he had heroin for sale.
Bickford’s affidavit says he supplied the informant with money and a recording device on July 28 and Aug. 25 and the person drove to an apartment on Eastern Avenue in Augusta and returned each time with a substance that field-tested positive for heroin. The informant said the seller was named “Cheese,” and identified a photo of Granger as that man, Bickford wrote.
A search warrant was executed at the apartment Thursday, and Bickford said authorities found Granger there with several small plastic bags containing heroin and cocaine base in his pockets.
A bail commissioner set Granger’s bail at $50,000 cash; however, the amount was reduced to $20,000 after Granger made an initial court appearance Friday via video from the Kennebec County jail in Augusta.
In a separate incident in June, Michael Lewis Williams, 24, of Augusta was arrested on charges of criminal trespassing and violating conditions of release after he allegedly entered a Washington Street apartment occupied by a mother and her three children while carrying a stick in search of a man named “Cheese.”
At the time, Augusta police Officer Kyle Sheridan wrote in an affidavit that a witness told him, “She could hear (the intruder) pounding and yelling, ‘Where’s Cheese? I want Cheese!’ on another apartment door.”
Williams told Sheridan at the time that Cheese was a narcotics dealer and that Williams did not want his children at a drug dealer’s residence, according to the affidavit.
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