By Sentinel Staff
A telephonic hearing by the U.S. District Court was scheduled today for 37-year-old Nathaniel Marc Harris, who was arrested in Sitka March 19 on federal charges of drug trafficking after receiving a package in the U.S. mail containing 50 grams of methamphetamine.
Sitka police assisted Alaska State Troopers and federal agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Postal Service in arresting Harris near ANB Harbor.
Harris, from Las Vegas, Nevada, is being held at the Juneau Lemon Creek Correctional Center on a criminal complaint of “attempted possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of actual (pure) methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute,” both felony offenses.
Court papers report the investigation began March 11 when postal inspectors in Las Vegas identified a Priority Mail Express parcel addressed to Harris at a PO box in Sitka, as being suspicious.
The package was delivered to Sitka, where a federal search warrant was issued. The package was opened and a substance identified as 167.9 grams of “actual (pure) methamphetamine” was found. A 50-gram “representative sample” of the meth was placed in the repackaged parcel, along with an electronic tracking device for a court-authorized “controlled delivery,” a DEA agent said in the criminal complaint.
The document said Harris was witnessed picking up the package at the Sitka post office and being driven to ANB Harbor. Shortly afterward, the complaint said, surveillance video showed Harris headed toward a fishing vessel, then shortly afterward leaving the harbor and discarding the “Subject Parcel” in a harbor trash can.
Harris was taken into custody at that time and investigators located “the Subject Parcel, which was open,” in the trash can.
“Harris’ hands showed evidence he handled the internal contents of Subject Parcel,” an investigator’s court affidavit said.
