From the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office:
Gene Robert Bowser, Jr., 37, of Aberdeen, Maryland, was sentenced on Tuesday, June 4, 2013, to 25 years in prison without the benefit of parole, for Possession with Intent to Distribute Hydrocodone, an opiate narcotic, by Circuit Judge M. Elizabeth Bowen for charges stemming from an arrest on January 6, 2012, at the Travel Lodge Motel in Aberdeen. He was convicted by a jury on December 18, 2012. This sentence closely follows a sentence of 13 years handed down on May 7, 2013, by Circuit Court Judge Stephen M. Waldron after Bowser was convicted on February 13, 2013, of misdemeanor possession of hydrocodone and morphine, stemming from an earlier arrest in Aberdeen on August 31, 2011.
The felony conviction in December 2012, before Judge Bowen, makes Bowser a three-time felony narcotics offender eligible for a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years without the benefit of parole. Judge Bowen ordered Bowser to serve the mandatory 25 years without parole, consecutive to the 13 year sentence imposed by Judge Waldron. The defendant will serve a combined total of 38 years, 25 of which will be without the benefit of parole.
On August 31, 2011, Bowser was a passenger in a car that was pulled over by Aberdeen police for passing a stop sign at Plater and Law Street. Acting on previous information that Bowser may be engaged in narcotics violations, police obtained consent to search his person and discovered hydrocodone and morphine in his pockets.
Five months later, on January 6, 2012, while free on bail and awaiting trial for the August 2011 offense, Bowser was again arrested while in possession of hydrocodone at the Travel Lodge Motel on West Bel Air Avenue, after Aberdeen police officers watched him make an alleged sale of narcotics at a gas station adjoining the Motel.Minutes after the alleged drug deal, Bowser was arrested by Aberdeen Police, in a Travel Lodge room registered to him. Several hydrocodone pills were found in Bowser’s pocket during the search pursuant to his arrest.
Judge Bowen cited Bowser’s lengthy criminal history, including his two prior felony drug convictions in 1996 and 2007 and the fact that his criminal conduct has continued well into as weighing heavily in her decision to impose 25 years without parole. Bowser will now be transferred to the Maryland Division of Correction from the Harford County Detention Center where he has been held since his arrest on January 6, 2012.
So we continue to pay for this guy for the rest of his adult life. Seems to me that he should be giving to the community in some positive way by way of hard labor for his next 38 years. Maybe that would help cover the cost of his 3 hots and a cot!
Pockets full of hydrocodone and morphine? Must have been hundreds of thousands of pills. Think of the lives saved! At least 25 years in prison? Brilliant. That’s about as smart as this moron getting busted for the third time.
If he was released, you would be bitching hi and low about that. Praise the judge for getting scum off the streets.
I think he should be on the streets…painting curbs, centerlines, picking up garbage…working his butt off to square up in some small way with community that now “owns him” and pays for his every need for the next 38 yrs. The only real shame is that this sentence should have been handed down on his second major offense!