EVANS CITY — An alleged drug dealer is headed for trial on charges he sold another man a potent prescription painkiller that caused him to die of an overdose.

District Judge Wayne Seibel at a preliminary hearing Tuesday ordered Mark E. Noah, 48, of Callery held for court on a list of felony charges, including a top count of drug delivery resulting in death.

That charge, the equivalent of third-degree murder, carries a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

Evans City/Seven Fields Regional Police arrested Noah last month after 52-year-old Kenneth Stefanowicz died April 7 of an apparent drug overdose at his Evans City home.

Stefanowicz died just hours after he allegedly went to the defendant's home to buy drugs, investigators said.

Police initially charged Noah with trafficking pain medication and heroin when those drugs were found at his Main Street Extension home during a warrant search that followed Stefanowicz's death.

But prosecutors on Tuesday, before the defendant's hearing, added the more serious charge of drug delivery resulting in death after recently receiving the toxicology report from Stefanowicz's autopsy.

That report, Patrolman Brian Mazzanti testified, showed that Stefanowicz died of “combined drug toxicity.”

Among the drugs found in his system was Fentanyl, a fast-acting painkiller purportedly 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Police allege Noah sold Stefanowicz two stamp bags of suspected heroin marked “American Dreamer.” But analysis by the state police crime lab in Westmoreland County, Mazzanti said, determined those bags contained Fentanyl.

The officer recounted that his investigation began shortly before 8 p.m. April 7 when Stefanowicz was discovered unresponsive in the basement of his Van Buren Street home that he shared with his mother.

“It looked like he had recently used drugs,” Mazzanti said of the victim, who appeared to have fresh “track marks” on his arm.

In his bedroom, police found a syringe and two empty glassine bags, commonly used to package a single dose of heroin, stamped in blue with the label “American Dreamer” along with an image of the Statue of Liberty.

Investigators spoke to family members who told police that Stefanowicz had struggled with an addiction to prescription painkillers. They knew that he regularly bought painkillers from Noah, Mazzanti said.

The officer testified that he also knew of Noah. The county's drug task force in December, he said, had arrested the defendant for allegedly selling narcotic painkillers. At that time, drug officers found dozens of stamp bags of heroin at his home.

Stefanowicz's mother, Annette Stefanowicz, told investigators that at 4 p.m. April 7 she had driven her son to Noah's home presumably so he could buy $40 worth of the narcotic painkiller Tramadol.

Police later reviewed text messages Stefanowicz received April 6 and 7 from Noah and the defendant's roommate, 55-year-old Sherry L. Purvis, that indicated Stefanowicz was seeking to buy drugs.

Purvis is also charged with felony drug possession in the investigation. Those charges are pending in Butler County court.

Annette Stefanowicz related that after driving her son to the defendants' home, he went inside and returned to her car three minutes later, Mazzanti testified.

She drove home and Stefanowicz went first to his bedroom and then the basement. Four hours later, she found him unconscious and not breathing.

He was eventually taken to UPMC Passavant Cranberry, authorities said, where he was pronounced dead at 8:42 p.m.

On cross-examination, Noah's attorney, public defender Ryan Helsel, tried to poke holes in the prosecution's case.

He got Mazzanti to admit that police relied on Annette Stefanowicz's account that her son never left his home after returning from allegedly buying drugs at the defendants' house.

The officer also conceded that he did not know who else was in the defendant's house when Stefanowicz was there, nor was there any independent witness who saw Noah sell or give any drugs to the victim that day.

Following Stefanowicz's death, police obtained a search warrant for the defendants' house. The warrant was executed at 2:05 a.m. April 8.

Mazzanti said the search that turned up numerous prescription pill bottles and 31 stamp bags marked “American Dreamer” and with the Statue of Liberty on them.

Additionally, police seized suspected drug contraband, including a scale, and several cell phones.

Mazzanti submitted the two empty stamp bags recovered from Stefanowicz's home and the 31 stamp bags from Noah's house to the police crime lab.

Analysis found both bags from Stefanowicz's home contained Fentanyl, the officer testified.

Of the bags from Noah's home, the officer said, “28 bags contained Fentanyl, two bags contained heroin and one contained both Fentanyl and heroin.”

The toxicology report from Stefanowicz's autopsy showed he had alcohol and drugs in his system. Among the drugs were Fentanyl and Tramadol.

The autopsy, Mazzanti said, showed Stefanowicz died of a combination of drugs. That same report found no other medical condition or injury that could explain the victim's death.

At the end of Mazzanti's testimony, Helsel asked Seibel to dismiss the most serious charge, in part arguing that the prosecution “failed to show a causal connection” that it was his client's drugs that led to Stefanowicz's death.

But prosecutor Russ Karl, a county assistant district attorney, countered that the testimony showed a “very close nexus” between Noah and Stefanowicz, which linked the victim's death to the defendant's drugs.

Noah remains in the Butler County Prison on $250,000 bail. Purvis is free on $5,000 unsecured bail.