Heroin kingpin draws prison

The presence of “New Arrival” heroin bags at the scene of a fatal overdose in Phoenixville led a borough narcotics detective to the arrest, imprisonment, and ultimately the conviction, of an old adversary, according to court documents.

On Friday, Malik Omar “Buck” Grasty pleaded guilty to multiple counts of drug offenses stemming from what authorities said was his role as the head of a large heroin and cocaine trafficking organization that operated in the

Phoenixville area in late 2016 and 2017. As part of a plea bargain with the prosecution, Grasty — an ex-convict who was on state parole at the time of his arrest last summer — was sentenced to eight to 20 years in state prison.

Chester County Court Judge Allison Bell Royer accepted the guilty plea to four counts of possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, illegal possession of a firearm, conspiracy, and other firearms charges. Although he pleaded guilty to facts that allege the delivery of the heroin that killed the user, he was not sentenced on that charge as part of the plea agreement worked out between Assistant District Attorney Kevin Pierce of the D.A.’s Drug Unit and defense attorney Lauren Milks of West Chester.

The investigation into Grasty, 36, of Phoenixville, also known as “Leek,” and his operation, which remains ongoing, was led

by Phoenixville Detective Thomas Hyland. The veteran narcotics officer, who has worked in the borough for eight years and also with the Chester County Municipal Drug Task Force, first arrested Grasty in 2014, and had been investigating his activities in the borough for months before his arrest.

The arrest came about six weeks after Hyland and other borough police officers responded to the report of a fatal drug overdose at a home on Second Avenue the morning of July 4. There, they found a man lying prone on a bed with evidence of recent heroin use scattered around him, including empty heroin bags and a used syringe. (The man was not identified in court records.)

Stamped on some of the heroin bags that were still unused were the words “New Arrival.” As Hyland noted in his arrest affidavit accusing Grasty of running the drug organization that utilized multiple street level dealers, such stamps are commonly used by distributors to market their illegal product.

Unfortunately, the “New

Arrival” heroin was heavily laced with the opioid carfentanil, a substance thousands of times more powerful — and thus more deadly — than fentanyl or heroin itself. An autopsy conducted of the man found dead on Second Avenue concluded that the drugs in his system indeed included a lethal dose of carfentanil.

In his investigation of the death scene, Hyland found a cellphone belonging to the dead man. On it, he found texts messages between the victim and a person identified only as “Kevin D.” The messages suggested that “Kevin D.” had sold the man the heroin that killed him.

Hyland and other operatives used the cellphone to contact the man, posing as the deceased, to arrange a meeting to purchase more drugs. On July 5, police watched as a suspect, later identified as Damon Eskridge, spoke on a cellphone when an undercover informant contacted him about the possibility of buying drugs, using the dead man’s phone.

Eskridge was taken into custody in a high-drug trafficking area of the borough on St. Mary’s Street and found to be in possession of several heroin bags, all with the stamp “New Arrival.” A check of his cellphone also uncovered text messages with others complaining about the alleged quality of the “New Arrival.” In response, Eskridge confirmed that his “New Arrival” was “official.”

In those texts, Hyland also learned that the source of the “New Arrival” heroin was someone named “Leek,” who Hyland knew was Grasty. In 2014, Hyland had arrested Grasty, a petty thief, with drug possession. He was sentenced to 27 to 60 months in state prison, a term on which he was paroled in October 2016.

Hyland, in his criminal

complaint, stated that in April 2017 he had been told by a confidential source that Grasty, also known as “Buck,” was selling between $1,000 and $2,000 worth of heroin and cocaine a week in the Phoenixville area, mostly from a “stash” house in the 200 block of Marshall Street in the borough. The source said that Grasty would often stay at a second house on Second Street, and use the Marshall Street property to store his drugs and paraphernalia in order to separate himself from the ongoing operation.

In taped calls between Eskridge and Grassy that Hyland obtained from Chester County Prison, he learned that Eskridge was angry with Grasty for not paying for an attorney to help him with the charges that stemmed from his July arrest. A search of Eskridge’s phone also showed a contact, Thomas J. “T.J.” Hyden, who he was later able to connect with Grasty in drug trafficking deals.

On Aug. 22, Hyland and others raided the homes on Marshall and South streets. At the South Street home, they found Grasty smoking

marijuana, and took him into custody after a brief chase. Inside the house, they found more than 50 cellphones and drug paraphernalia, including thousands of unused heroin packets. Later, more confidential sources told them they had purchased “New Arrival” heroin directly from Grasty.

In the cellphone they confiscated when they arrested Grasty, police found a series of messages that indicated that Grasty had bragged about the size of his operation and how he would avoid going back to prison.

“I’m running the show on both these blocks,” one of the messages read, according to the arrest affidavit, apparently referring to South and Marshall streets. “You think I’m trying (to) go back?”

Following his plea Friday, Grasty will, however, soon make a trip back to the state prison system that he had left less then 18 months before.

Malik Omar ‘Buck’ Grasty