BAR HARBOR, Maine — Two men are being held on Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers at Hancock County Jail after their arrest on drug charges.
Mohamed Eytah, 20, of Collinsville, Illinois, and Cheikh Hmeimed, 25, of Brooklyn, New York, were both charged with unlawful possession of scheduled drugs, and refusing to submit to arrest or detention, according to the Mount Desert Police Department and court documents.
Court documents also indicated the men were both from Mauritania, in northwest Africa.
The incident started when an employee at the Best Western Acadia Park Inn at 452 Route 3 called Bar Harbor Police just after noon on Sunday saying that two parties were refusing to leave their rooms after checkout, according to police.
The hotel also reported that the two parties, a man and a woman in one group and two men in the other, claimed not to be together but had all filled out the same vehicle information on their guest registration cards.
When an officer arrived, she allegedly saw two men sitting outside of a room with plastic bags. The officer told the men to stay where they were and went to speak with the man in the woman in the other room, who agreed to pack up and leave their rooms.
When the officer went back to speak with the two other men, they were allegedly gone, and a housekeeper said they had run into the woods, according to police.
After the officer left, the men were spotted by a maintenance shed and employee housing area. When the officer was returning, she allegedly saw them run across Route 3 toward Bar Harbor Campground and a stopped Island Explorer bus.
Police detained the two men and allegedly found Narcan in Hmeimed’s pocket. A witness told police they saw one of the men throw something into the bushes, and after searching the area police allegedly found a small plastic bag containing 12 and a half pills of several types.
Some of the pills were identifiable as prescription oxycodone, according to police. Another, of which there were five similar pills, tested positive for fentanyl, and the rest were not narcotics.
Eytah and Hmeimed were brought to Hancock County Jail.
They were arraigned on Monday and given $10,000 cash bail. As of Wednesday afternoon, neither man had made bail.
Both men have an ICE detainer issued for them according to Hancock County Jail Assistant Administrator Frank Shepard. That detainer means that if the men make bail, they will still be held at the jail to allow the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to assume custody of them.
Hancock County was one of three Maine locations, along with Cumberland County and the city of Portland, named by DHS in April as “sanctuary jurisdictions” that were ““deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
This story was originally published by The Bar Harbor Story. To receive regular coverage from the Bar Harbor Story, sign up for a free subscription here.
