BRENTWOOD — A woman sentenced to prison this week for selling heroin had concealed her identity with a fraudulent New Hampshire driver's license that she obtained sometime after she had been charged in a previous case in 2008, according to prosecutors.

Marilenni Silberi was sentenced to 2 to 6 years in state prison after pleading guilty to three counts of sale of a controlled drug and one count of accomplice to sale of a controlled drug.

The Sheriff's Department learned that Silberi had been living under the alias of Denisse Torres-Colon of Manchester weeks after she was arrested outside of the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem on Nov. 3.

“She had a New Hampshire driver's license, a car registered in her name and said she was about 30 years old,” Assistant County Attorney Michael Zaino said. “Her defense lawyer said she was only 20.”

Silberi was living in Lawrence, Mass., according to authorities.

“The interesting thing is she has an arrest in 2008 in Massachusetts for distribution of controlled substances,” Zaino said.
Silberi failed to appear in court for that case in 2009, Zaino said.

Salem police and the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office set up purchases of heroin with Silberi after learning about her through a confidential informant, prosecutors said. Silberi brokered three transactions personally, bringing the drugs up from Lawrence, Mass. She helped broker a fourth transaction before she was arrested on Nov. 3 in Salem.

When investigators first ran a background check on her alias, it came back with no criminal record.

County prosecutors do not know where or how Silberi got her new identification.

But details about Silberi's alias and dodging another drug case in Massachusetts comes months after a judge sentenced two people — including an ex-Department of Motor Vehicles clerk in Salem — for selling scores of bogus licenses to illegal immigrants and people convicted of drug crimes.

The Rockingham County Sheriff's Department learned that Torres-Colon was an alias on Dec. 16 — about a month after Silberi was arrested, Zaino said.

jkimble@newstote.com