NASHUA – Shortly after they arrested a local man on felony drug charges in 2017, Nashua police narcotics detectives asked the man if he’d be willing to give them some information – such as where, and from whom, he buys his drugs, a prosecutor told members of a Superior Court jury Wednesday.

The name the soon-to-be confidential informant gave up was Jason Levesque, an admitted cocaine user who, according to testimony, also told police he’d sold the drug in the past to support his habit.

At the request of the detectives, the man agreed to work with them by conducting “a buy” of drugs from Levesque, an offer, according to testimony, that was sweetened by a promise to reduce the man’s felony drug charge to a misdemeanor.

It’s what did and didn’t happen the evening the man, after being briefed by several narcotics detectives, accompanied them to the area of 36 Mason St., where, given $200 in pre-recorded bills, he would meet Levesque and allegedly buy a quantity of cocaine from him.

Whether police conducted a “rushed … shoddy investigation” that failed to produce enough evidence to convict Levesque, as the defense contends, or worked the case by the book and gave prosecutors ample evidence to convict Levesque, as the prosecution claims, is now up to a jury to decide.

The first steps in that process were taken Wednesday, when Levesque’s trial got underway at Hillsborough County Superior Court-South before a jury of 10 men and four women, including the two alternates.

Levesque, 49, who has been free on bail since shortly after his arrest in March 2018, faces one count of sale of a controlled drug – cocaine, a felony.

Testimony is scheduled to resume at 10 a.m. today, and the case is expected to go to the jury at some point during the day.

While the alleged drug buy took place on Nov. 15, 2017, police didn’t arrest Levesque until March because they typically conduct multiple “buys” with a suspect before taking them into custody, the prosecutor, Assistant County Attorney Lisa Drescher, told the jury.

Additional “buys” didn’t happen in this case, according to an undercover police detective who was the first witness to be called to the stand Wednesday.

The detectives who conducted the operation followed their usual procedures, Dresher said. The informant would “go out, buy drugs, and police would be monitoring everything … they had surveillance in place, they had (the informant) wear an audio recorder … then they waited,” she told the jury during her opening statement.

“You’ll also hear that (the informant) received some consideration for what he did,” Drescher added, referring to police agreeing to reduce his felony drug charge to a misdemeanor.

Attorney Elliot Friedman, a public defender who is representing Levesque with Attorney Daniel Donadio, also a public defender, proclaimed Levesque’s innocence from the start.

“Jason Levesque is not guilty. He did not sell cocaine to (the informant) on Nov. 15, 2017,” Friedman said, standing before the jury.

Acknowledging that Levesque did in fact tell police after his arrest that he used cocaine and “sometimes sold it,” Friedman pointed out that “this case isn’t about whether Jason ever had access to cocaine, or whether he ever sold it. The question is: Did Jason Levesque sell cocaine to (the informant) on Nov. 15, 2017?

“The evidence is simply not going to show you that he did,” Friedman said.

Referring to the informant as “a convicted felon … with truth issues,” Friedman said that because the audio recording of the alleged transaction “is of extremely poor quality,” it doesn’t really help the prosecution’s case.

Even though it’s quality is poor, Friedman told jurors, they “won’t hear Jason’s name come up at all” on the recording. “But you will hear another name,” he said, that of Levesque’s landlord, with whom he shares the Mason Street residence.

The landlord is allegedly “known to deal cocaine” as well, Friedman said. He floated a theory to jurors that the landlord, not Levesque, may have sold the informant the cocaine.

“How do you know you can believe the informant when he says it was Jason who sold him the cocaine?” Friedman said. “How do you know he’s not throwing a fellow cocaine user (Levesque) under the bus, so he won’t have to give up his own dealer?”

“The answer is, you don’t know. You can’t know,” he said.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com, or @Telegraph_DeanS.