Suspect faces new drug charges
CENTER TWP — A township man is back in trouble with the law after 100 stamp bags of suspected heroin were found at his home during a routine probation compliance check, authorities said.
Richard A. Paskosky, 47, was charged Wednesday on a pair of felony charges in the case. He is in the Butler County Prison on a probation violation while awaiting arraignment on the latest charges.
The Butler County Drug Task Force charged Paskosky stemming from the compliance check about 10:50 a.m. Friday at his mobile home on Jill Drive in Center Township.
He was home alone and let the probation officers inside, according to court documents. He denied he had drugs there.
But it didn't take long for the officers to uncover drugs, documents said, which were found in a cloth drawstring bag in the drawer of the living room table.
The cloth bag contained two bricks of heroin, or about 100 glassine bags, county Detective Tim Fennell, who heads the task force, said in his affidavit.
During a compliance check last August at the home, probation officers searching the same coffee table drawer and found 39 stamp bags of heroin and other contraband in a small tin box, documents said.
In last week's check, officers also found about $150 in currency in the coffee table drawer and two cell phones on top of the table.
Fennell on Monday obtained a search warrant for the cell phones. One of the phones turned up text conversations from Friday, documents said, “related to the selling of 'tics,' slang for tickets or stamp bags of heroin.”
For example, Fennell noted in his affidavit, a contact asks by text, “Hey you have tics right, anyway my friend you met last night at sheetz could stop over and buy some?”
Paskosky is charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and criminal use of a communication facility. He could be arraigned as early as Thursday, Fennell said.
The defendant Feb. 7 was sentenced to 7 to 23 months in Butler County Prison for his guilty plea to felony drug possession in connection with the heroin found in last year's compliance check.
He was given 175 days time served credit, and released Feb. 14, according to prison officials.
