A 26-year-old Haverhill man is the latest to plead guilty in federal court to distributing cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl and conspiring with others in a scheme that included smuggling drugs into the Essex County Jail.
Elijah Declet pleaded guilty Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who scheduled sentencing for June 16. In an earlier federal statement, Declet was also known under the name “Evil.”
According to a statement from U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins’s office, Declet was charged in November 2021 along with 12 others in connection with a large drug conspiracy centering around a gang operating in Lawrence, Haverhill and Methuen.
Declet was first targeted for alleged gang activity by Haverhill Police in 2015. Then-Capt. Robert P. Pistone said the arrest of Declet among six others in April of that year came as a result of “aggressive policing and investigations in the high crime areas of the Acre and the Mount Washington Hill area where violence has occurred in the past few weeks.” Declet was then charged with possession of a class D drug with intent to distribute, conspiracy to violate drug laws and a drug violation near a school zone.
The investigation, which began in August 2020, caught communications between gang leaders, members and drug suppliers about their alleged distribution of fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and Suboxone in Massachusetts, Maine and southern New Hampshire as well as into the Essex County Jail. Calls were intercepted between Declet and other gang members, who worked together to distribute cocaine and fentanyl pills and, on several occasions, Declet distributed cocaine and methamphetamine pills to a cooperating witness.
Although the gang affiliations are known to WHAV, it is the radio station’s policy not to provide additional notoriety to the groups by naming them.