The jury deliberated for an hour and a half before telling the court they found Carr guilty of possession and attempted delivery of methamphetamine. Evidence presented by Alpena County Prosecutor Cynthia Muszynski — including the testimony of a known drug dealer and felon — proved Carr intended to sell meth in Northeast Michigan, the jury decided.

Police arrested Carr in January as part of a flurry of meth-related arrests, including seven arrests in two days and 11 in two weeks.

After an informant reported Carr would soon arrive in town with drugs for sale, police found him in the back seat of a vehicle, along with a drug-like substance and a tool used by drug dealers, according to testimony.

The court has not yet set Carr’s sentencing date. Judge Ed Black could sentence him to a minimum of six years in prison, according to Muszynski.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Joshua Carr, convicted on Wednesday of attempted drug distribution, stands with an Alpena County Sheriff’s Office deputy in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court.

During testimony, Huron Undercover Narcotics Team detectives explained why Alpena attracts people hoping to make money by selling drugs, especially the highly addictive stimulant methamphetamine.

One gram of meth — or about four doses, although dosing amounts vary — sells for about $100 in Alpena, a HUNT detective testified.

The same amount sells for much less downstate, creating a potentially lucrative business for people willing to go downstate and purchase the drug.

While homemade, powdery meth used to be common in Northeast Michigan, most of the drug now comes from large cities in crystal form. Dealers who live downstate sometimes bring the drug north to sell, but police have also seen a surge in local residents who make the trip to purchase the drug, police testified.

Carr’s arrest was closely connected with several other meth arrests in the same time span, according to details provided in court by police officers, HUNT detectives, two residents who transported Carr, and a man who admitted he sells drugs locally.

News Photo by Julie Riddle An undercover officer shows a jury a photo of crystals suspected to be methamphetamine during a trial in Alpena’s 26th Circuit Court on Wednesday.

According to their combined testimony, drug dealer and witness Nikolas Niezgoda and his girlfriend, Aaron Bissonette, convinced an Alpena woman to drive them, Carr, and Chad Kamen to the Pontiac area on Jan. 4.

The woman told the jury she helped Carr pick up $500 delivered by wire transfer at a downstate retailer.

According to police testimony, dealers regularly use wire transfers to obtain cash.

The next day, Carr remained downstate while the others returned to Alpena, where Niezgoda and Bissonette gave or sold drugs they had obtained on their trip to several people, according to Niezgoda.

Police arrested Niezgoda, Bissonette, and passenger Stehnes Yennior on drug charges that day as they left a known drug house, acting on a tip from Kamen after police arrested him with 11 grams of meth.

Niezgoda, hoping police would go easy on him if he offered them information, listed Carr among others he said distributed drugs locally. He told police Carr would arrive in Alpena the next day with two grams — or potentially more than 200 doses — of meth or heroin.

Acting on Niezgoda’s information, police learned Carr intended to return north on a bus. Uniformed and plainclothes officers met the bus and detained Carr less than a minute after he entered the back seat of a sport utility vehicle.

Police found a digital scale — of a kind often used by drug dealers, according to police testimony — in Carr’s jacket pocket. They found no drugs on his person, but crushed crystals — some of which later proved to be meth — lay nearby.

According to defense attorney Rick Steiger, another passenger in the SUV — who officers testified was a drug dealer — could have strewn the crystals in the back seat before police reached the vehicle.

Police used first a spoon and then packing tape to gather about 10 ounces of powdery and granular meth they found strewn across the vehicle’s back seat area, including the floor.

According to HUNT detectives, people caught with drugs frequently try to destroy the evidence, sometimes by throwing it out a window, flushing it down a toilet, or grinding it into the floor.

Only Niezgoda — with a substantial prison record including time served for at least 11 home invasions in Presque Isle and Alpena counties and, by his own admission, an active drug dealer in Alpena — testified that Carr bought drugs downstate, intending to sell them in Alpena.

Niezgoda, who in May pleaded guilty to distributing the drug fentanyl, did so with the promise he would be sentenced to no more than a year in jail in exchange for his testimony against Carr and at least one other person.

Of the 11 people arrested by HUNT on drug charges in early January, five — Niezgoda, Lacey Roskey, Justin Shipp, Mitchell Brisbois, and Devon Churchfield — pleaded guilty to drug charges, with additional charges of possession of child pornography for Churchfield.

Donald Grooms is scheduled for trial in August.

Kamen and Nathaniel Pratt are scheduled to appear in court on Monday, and Bissonette will return to court in August. No court file could be found for Yennior.