More trouble for man who got probation for drug package while on house arrest
A former St. Charles man who was sentenced to probation after having $2,100 in THC oil mailed to his house while he was on home-monitoring awaiting trial on three felony drug cases is in trouble again.
Braham M. Thomas, 22, now of the 300 block of Linden Place, DeKalb, is charged with felony manufacture/delivery of up to 30 grams of marijuana and two counts of misdemeanor marijuana possession stemming from two sales in July to an informant who was cooperating with authorities, according to Kane County court records and state police.
A Kane County arrest warrant was issued Dec. 5, he turned himself in to DeKalb police on Tuesday and posted bail.
Thomas is next due in court Jan. 16 before Judge D.J. Tegeler; the newest charges carry a top punishment of three years in prison.
Thomas' arrest was part of an investigation by the North Central Narcotics Task Force, a unit of the state police, said Sgt. Chris Burke, the task force's West Squad Leader.
"This is the third investigation we've done in two years for this particular individual," Burke said. "People keep telling us he keeps selling."
Thomas was on electronic home monitoring for three felony cases from arrests in November 2015, January 2016 and January 2017 in Kane County when he was arrested in May 2017 on charges that he accepted a package containing the THC oil.
The task force obtained a warrant for the package in that case. After that arrest, Thomas' home monitoring was revoked, and he was held at the Kane County jail on $200,000 bail. Thomas eventually pleaded guilty to the January 2017 and May 2017 offenses.
In November 2017, prosecutors argued for prison, but Judge John Barsanti issued a sentence of probation that came with a stern warning. "I don't trust you," Barsanti told Thomas at the time. "If you come back in front of me (for a probation violation), I'm not going to make this speech again."
Timothy Mahoney, a defense attorney who successfully argued for probation for Thomas in November 2017 and is representing him in an DeKalb traffic case for driving while license revoked and using a cellphone on Aug. 1, 2018, did not return a phone message.
If a judge determines Thomas violated his probation, he could be resentenced to up to 12 years in prison.