Man faces new charge of fentanyl possession
A Butler man intends to take his case to trial and, amid preparations, prosecutors are adding a charge of fentanyl possession to the long list of drug-related charges he received after a police raid at his home last year.
“I've made a more than generous offer that was refused,” Assistant District Attorney Laura Pitchford said in court Wednesday as Michael L. Jackson stood by wearing a Butler County Prison-issued jumpsuit. He's being held at the county jail on a $200,000 bond.
Pitchford noted that a lab report recently revealed that fentanyl was mixed in with the seized bags of suspected raw heroin and crack cocaine. The presence of the synthetic opiate will result in a new charges.
“He's now looking at five to six years in prison on that charge alone,” Pitchford said
In addition to the new charge, Jackson faces felony charges of delivery and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, criminal use of a communication facility, and conspiracy to commit all of those same crimes. He is also charged with misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia.
Jackson's lawyer, Brian Duane Farrington, said Jackson wants to take the case to trial.
A jury selection is scheduled Thursday.
The raid that led to Jackson's arrest, led by the state Office of the Attorney General's Bureau of Narcotics, followed a controlled drug buy on June 27, 2018, at the home on the 200 block of South Sixth Avenue.
A search of the house, documents said, turned up two knotted plastic bags of what appeared to be raw heroin, 27 stamp bags of suspected heroin, and a knotted bag containing 20 individual plastic bags of crack.
Also allegedly seized were 10 stamp bags of suspected heroin that were inside a box filled with 400 empty stamp bags, nine other boxes containing 4,500 empty stamp bags, and more drug-packaging materials.
Additionally, authorities said, officers found a combined $4,616 in currency, three digital scales, an electronic mixer and metal sifters, and the cell phone used to set up the deal with the informant.
Court records showed that Jackson was convicted in a 2013 felony drug case in Philadelphia.
