Police said he could be a drug kingpin. Now he learns his sentence.

A man who fell for a "cinematic" ruse in which police promised to establish him as Rutland's drug kingpin has learned how long he'll spend in prison.

Corey Carter, 32, of New York City faced up to 20 years in prison and $1 million in fines following his guilty plea this spring to conspiring to distribute heroin. Law-enforcement authorities alleged Carter and his associates dealt drugs in Rutland from 2014 until his arrest in June 2016, though the federal charge he faced related only to illegal activity in May 2016.

At sentencing last month in U.S. District Court in Rutland, Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Carter to prison for 11 years, followed by three years of supervised release, according to court records.

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Would-be kingpin gets prison instead

Carter's case gained attention this spring when the defense raised questions about how the police handled an interrogation that led to Carter's confession. A Vermont Drug Task Force agent told Carter during questioning after his arrest that the authorities would consider releasing him and making him the region's leading drug dealer for six months, in exchange for his cooperation.

The police would help him dominate the competition, the agent promised, and funnel all narcotics sales through him, according to court papers. All Carter had to do was tell investigators what he knew.

That offer was too good to refuse — and violated Carter's rights, the defense argued earlier this year in asking Crawford to throw out the confession. But the judge, while conceding the tactic was "cinematic" and "fantastic," also ruled that the ruse was legal.

Carter's guilty plea followed.

In exchange, federal prosecutors agreed to recommend that Carter receive credit for accepting responsibility, which factored into reducing the amount of time he will serve in prison, according to court records.

Rutland, a city of 16,500 residents, has become an epicenter of Vermont's battle against drugs — heroin in particular. The authorities have tried a number of novel and aggressive approaches to curb drug dealing in the region.

At issue in Carter's case was how far law enforcement could go in deceiving a suspect during questioning. Officers are allowed to mislead suspects, but courts have set limits.

The defense argued in court papers that agents stepped over the boundary by combining "a promise of leniency with a promise of protection and a guaranteed six month run as the happiest, most successful drug dealer in a three-county area."

Prosecutors conceded the tactic was unprecedented but also argued it was legal. Judge Crawford agreed, ruling that Carter "was lured into damaging admissions about his participation in drug sales by the cinematic suggestion that he could dominate the trade. The fantastic story he was told … may have tempted him into cooperation, but the conversation was free from verbal abuse, definitive promises, or other coercive tactics, and it began with the disclosure of his Miranda rights.

"With these two requirements met," the judge concluded, "there is no basis on which Defendant can claim that his statements were involuntary."

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Prosecutors accused Carter of working with a pair of local men, brothers Sebastian and Yorgan Benjamin, to sell heroin from a Rutland apartment. What the trio didn't know, according to federal prosecutors, was that the apartment was part of a sting by the FBI and Vermont Drug Task Force, and some of their customers were informants.

The Benjamin brothers also have pleaded guilty. Sebastian Benjamin was sentenced to time served — about four months — followed by four months of home detention and three years of supervised release, court records show. Yorgan Benjamin has failed to appear in court, federal prosecutors say. A warrant is out for his arrest.

Contact Adam Silverman at 802-660-1854 or asilverman@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @wej12.