An opium trafficking charge for one Washington man was reduced to two counts of possession with intent to sell in Beaufort County Superior Court Monday.

In a plea arrangement with the state, Matthew Thomas McCraw, pleaded guilty to the reduced charges, each class H felonies and punishable to up to 30 months in prison as determined by North Carolina’s structured sentencing.

On Feb. 9, 2009, a confidential informant working with the Washington Police Department met with McCraw at Walmart. According to the informant, McCraw took money, left and came back again with 20 pills that would later be tested by the State Bureau of Investigation lab and come back positive for Oxycodone, a schedule II controlled substance.

Two months later, in a second encounter with the informant — this one audio and video taped — McCraw would sell $250 worth of pills, 26.4 grams of Oxycodone. According to Assistant District Attorney Matthew Rice’s summary of the case, police officers would later pull McCraw over and find evidence of the sale in his shoe.

McCraw was charged with trafficking in opium.

Defense attorney Donald Stroud asked Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. to consider a split sentence as McCraw had served 20 days in jail and has not been in trouble since his 2009 arrest. McCraw also had no prior record level points.

Sermons gave McCraw the mandatory minimum sentence of six to eight months, which he suspended in lieu of 18 months of supervised probation. Should McCraw pay off his restitution of $600 to the SBI lab and $350 to the WPD narcotics unit, and abide by the strictures of his probation, he will be placed on unsupervised probation.