A Pembroke man who was free on bail conditions when he began operating a lucrative methamphetamine business out of his apartment will spend the next three to six years in state prison.
Thomas McEneany, 31, reached a plea agreement with county prosecutors that resolved three separate criminal cases against him, including two for drug possession and sales. He pleaded guilty Friday morning in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord to three counts of sale of a controlled drug, two counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to distribute, as well as one count each of breach of bail, witness tampering and false report of an accident.
McEneany has an extensive criminal history in New Hampshire and Washington state, but the felony convictions Friday are his first.
“This was something that was fueled by my addictions,” McEneany told Judge John Kissinger Jr., who presided over the plea and sentencing hearing.
McEneany said he recently began treatment in hopes of a less-severe sentencing resolution that would favor rehabilitation, but that he has since invested himself in programming for the right reasons – and hopes to continue on that path.
“Maybe I jumped into it with different intentions, but I think it’s started to take hold and has given me a lot of hope,” he said.
Authorities arrested McEneany in the summer of 2017 following a traffic stop on Buck Street in Pembroke, not far from his apartment; he was a passenger in a Nissan Xterra pulled over by police. With the driver’s permission, police said they searched the car and recovered a backpack that had drug paraphernalia and a Sig Sauer handgun, which McEneany had in violation of court-ordered bail conditions.
Investigators had been keeping a close eye on McEneany’s studio apartment for weeks leading up to his arrest. The state attorney general’s drug task force had partnered with local police to execute undercover buys at the residence in June 2017 and later issued warrants charging him with methamphetamine sales.
A sworn affidavit documents two separate drug deals were carried out by a confidential police informant and recorded through one-party intercepts, and a third deal that was executed by the same informant and an undercover officer. During one of the buys, McEneany was recorded saying he had the best “meth around” and that it was a “well-known fact,” according to the affidavit.
Assistant Merrimack County Attorney Meghan Hagaman detailed the facts in the drug case during Friday’s hearing, while also providing the court with an overview of McEneany’s criminal record that includes convictions for assault, drug possession, driving while intoxicated, obstructing government administration and breach of bail.
She said despite being out on bail, McEneany continued to engage in serious drug sales and that warrants a significant prison sentence.
In addition to the drug charges, McEneany also pleaded guilty to his involvement in a motor vehicle crash in Pembroke in May 2017. McEneany was operating without a license at the time and therefore tried to pin the crash on his girlfriend who was a passenger. He told police his girlfriend was driving and told the driver of the other car involved to do the same.
McEneany, who faces a minimum of three years behind bars, was credited with more than 100 days served pretrial. Upon his release, he will have an additional five- to 10-year state prison sentence hanging over him, which county prosecutors could ask the court to impose if he is not of good behavior for five years.
“You are a young man; you have much of your life ahead of you,” Kissinger told McEneany. “You are kind of at a crossroads.”
While Kissinger acknowledged the availability of treatment programs in prison doesn’t meet the demand, he encouraged McEneany to engage in as much as possible.
“This is not a life sentence; this is a few-year sentence,” Kissinger said. “My question of you is what are you going to do at that point? Are you going to make some changes or are you going to make the same decisions that brought you here?”
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319 or adandrea@cmonitor.com.)