By John Chambless
Staff Writer

For neighbors of a Lower Oxford man, Jan. 26 was a day of anxiety as multiple police departments and a helicopter closed in on the home of Richard Allan “Ricky” Maitre II, in the 300 block of Conner Road in Lower Oxford Township.

Maitre, police say, was operating a large drug ring for more than a year before he was apprehended in the surprise raid last month. He had been under surveillance by agents from the Chester County Detectives and the State Police Troop J Vice and Narcotics Unit for several weeks, and his phone conversations were being monitored.

Maitre, 27, and dozens of his associates are being held in Chester County Prison.

A criminal complaint written by detective Jeremy Rubincan and state trooper Stephen Peterson was filed in Avondale District Court on Jan. 12. Maitre is facing charges of drug possession with intent to deliver, operating a corrupt organization, dealing in the proceeds of unlawful activity, criminal solicitation, criminal use of a telephone facility, and criminal conspiracy.

In their complaint, Rubincan and Peterson say that they began investigating the drug trafficking in 2015. The organization, called the Maitre DTO, “distributes large amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, marijuana and prescription pills,” they wrote. “The area that the alleged drug ring operated in stretched from Chester and Lancaster counties in Pennsylvania, to Delaware and Maryland. Suppliers came from as far way as Arizona, Puerto Rico, and Texas.”

The Maitre DTO relied on a large-scale distribution of drugs, with participants buying kilos of cocaine and pounds of methamphetamine. Maitre was the manager of more than 30 co-conspirators including Christopher Forrester of Kennett Square, a convicted drug dealer who got out of state prison in February 2016.

Also contained in the complaint are details about phone and text conversations between Maitre and his girlfriend, Maria Elena Lemos, 41, of Kennett Square. A criminal complaint against Lemos, who was arrested on Jan. 12, says she had complained at one point that “everyone is getting sloppy” and that the “wrong person is going to take the hit.”

To contact Staff Writer John Chambless, email [email protected].