NORWICH – A man accused of being at the center of a 2009 drug bust in which police raided two apartments and a storage shed, seizing sports cars, several handguns and more than $25,000 worth of cocaine, appeared in Chenango County Court last week to challenge his alleged role in the crimes.

Michael A. Victor Jr., 29, was arrested at daybreak on March 27, 2009, during a tactical operation by the Norwich Police Department, the New York State Police and Chenango County Sheriff’s Office.

District Attorney Joseph McBride said police conducted a three month investigation into Victor and his alleged co-conspirators, including his roommate and girlfriend at the time, 21-year-old Curissa Jenkins of Norwich.

Testifying before W. Howard Sullivan for an evidence hearing last Monday, Deputy Police Chief Rodney Marsh said investigators coordinating with the State Police and sheriff placed the couple under surveillance, using undercover narcotics officers and informants.

Marsh said during the investigation police took photographs of people visiting the two apartments rented under Jenkins’ name, one at 72 Plymouth St. and another at 31 Hickok Ave. Officers in unmarked cars also followed suspects to suspected drug deals and deliveries, he said.

Police would later raid both locations at the same time, allegedly discovering amounts drugs. Police say the couple used one location as a drug front and the other as a residence.

Marsh said undercover informants and police conducted nine covert cocaine and heroin buys between January and March 2009; eight of those were reportedly from Jenkins and one from another woman who was later charged as a co-conspirator, though none from Victor himself.

A few days following the raid on, April 3, 2009, a new development came in the case when officers discovered a storage unit in the Town of Norwich rented under Jenkins’ name.

Inside they reported finding a 2004 Mercedes CLK 500 sports coupe with three loaded firearms inside, a TEC-9 machine pistol with a large capacity magazine, a .357 revolver, a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol and $25,000 of wrapped crack cocaine inside the car.

Since the case became public, two other defendants were charged in relation to Jenkins’ and Victor’s arrest, and all of them, except for Victor, have accepted plea agreements with the district attorney’s office.