HARTFORD, Conn. — A man who helped a Roman Catholic priest sell methamphetamine in Connecticut has been sentenced to prison time already served after officials cited his extraordinary rehabilitation efforts.
Michael Nelson was sentenced in federal court in Hartford on Thursday. He spent two weeks in custody after his 2013 arrest. He also was placed on four years of supervised released and fined $10,000.
Federal prosecutors said the Manchester resident and another man helped Monsignor Kevin Wallin sell several pounds of meth in Connecticut. Wallin, dubbed “Monsignor Meth” in some media reports, is serving a five-year prison sentence.
Nelson’s lawyer says his client hasn’t used drugs since his arrest.
Wallin had been the pastor at St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport for nine years before resigning in 2011, citing health and personal problems. He has acknowledged his guilt and apologized for his misconduct.
“I have never from the day I was arrested denied my guilt,” Wallin, 63, said when he was sentenced at a U.S. District Court in Hartford. “The day I was arrested was a very good day. It took me out of that situation.”
Prosecutors said Wallin received meth in the mail from California suppliers and supplied a New York distributor. He also bought an adult video and sex toy shop named “Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place,” apparently to launder profits from the drug ring, they said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Caruso acknowledged Wallin’s service as a priest and his charitable work, saying Wallin is “genuinely remorseful.” But Wallin, who worked in Bridgeport and Danbury, was the “most culpable” as the head of the meth ring, the prosecutor said.
“He turned his apartment into a meth den for people to buy methadone, to use methadone,” he said. “He became a stone-cold drug dealer.”
