By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Another round of drug sweeps in the Twin Cities this week resulted in the arrests of three people and the seizure of cocaine, cash and weapons.

A man and woman were arrested Tuesday on charges they were dealing drugs out of a motel in Lewiston and an apartment in Auburn. Investigators said more than $4,000 in cash, cocaine, crack cocaine and a shotgun were seized during those arrests.

Mary Jo Valeriani, 31, was arrested Tuesday night after local and federal agents searched her room at the Morning Star Motel on Lisbon Street. Police said they found 11 grams of crack, a detailed list of sales, scales and packing materials inside the room. They also reported recovering $941 believed to be the result of drug transactions.

Agents from the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and Central Maine Violent Crime Task Force had been keeping the motel under surveillance while the investigation was under way, police said. While watching the building, agents said they spotted a man they are familiar with having contact with Valeriani, in spite of a court order prohibiting him from doing so.

With that information, agents went to the man’s apartment at 122 Hampshire St. in Auburn and initially arrested him for violating conditions of release. The man was identified as 31-year-old Gerald Lamar “Peoples” Woods. Police said Woods moved to Auburn from Springfield, Mass., and that he has a long criminal history of assaults and drug dealing.

Inside Woods’ apartment, police said they found a quarter ounce of crack, a half ounce of cocaine, $380 in cash and a loaded 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip. Investigators said Woods was carrying $3,190 when he was searched.

Valeriani was charged with trafficking in cocaine. Woods was charged with aggravated trafficking because police charge that he was dealing out of his apartment that is across the street from Webster Elementary School.

Police and drug agents had been watching Woods and another man for the past six months, investigators said. The second man, 23-year-old Bernard “Yaba” Collins, of the Bronx, N.Y., was the focus of another raid Wednesday night.

When investigators raided Collins’ Gamage Avenue apartment in Auburn Wednesday night, police said they found $5,700 in cash, an ounce of cocaine and related material. Police also said Collins had set up a video surveillance system to monitor activity outside his apartment. The system, including a large screen television, was taken by police as they arrested Collins with trafficking in cocaine and crack.

Drug agents say Collins and Woods were major drug dealers in the Twin Cities and that both had been shipping cocaine and crack from Massachusetts and New York. On Thursday, those two as well as Valeriani remained at the Androscoggin County Jail.

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