Dealer pleads guilty in 1,000-bag heroin bust
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » A Chester man entered an open guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver Monday for more than 1,000 bags worth of heroin that police removed from a residence on the 1100 block of Walnut Street last year.
Carlos Ojeda-Cortes, 35, is scheduled for sentencing before Common Pleas Court Judge G. Michael Green March 10. He faces up to 15 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.
Members of Chester’s Police Narcotics Unit executed a search warrant at the Walnut Street residence with help from Delaware County Drug Task Force Officers Sept. 5, 2019, according to an affidavit of probable cause written by Chester Officer Marc Barag.
Officer William Murphy and his K-9 partner, Chase, located a possible positive hit on a knot in a curtain in the defendant’s bedroom, according to the affidavit. A check of the curtain revealed two clear plastic bags filled with a total of 38 bundles of heroin in blue wax paper. Each bundle contained 14 bags of heroin for a total of 532 bags, according to the affidavit.
Another curtain on the same window also contained a purple latex glove concealing a clear knotted sandwich bag containing approximately 17.3 grams of loose heroin that could have been bundled into another 500 bags with a street value of approximately $11,000, according to police.
Ojeda-Cortes also directed officers to a laundry basket in his room containing various paraphernalia used in the preparation and packaging of heroin for distribution and sale, according to the affidavit. Police additionally recovered two small notebooks identified as drug sale ledgers, more than $10,000 in cash, two cell phones and four vehicles.
Ojeda-Cortes, represented by defense attorney Elliot Cohen, previously entered open guilty pleas to propulsion of a missile into an occupied vehicle and reckless endangerment for shooting at a man during a high-speed chase down Interstate 95 in January 2019.
Pennsylvania State Police troopers responded to the area of mile marker 10 on Interstate 95 northbound in Tinicum around 3:38 a.m. Jan. 5, where both vehicles were stopped on the roadway. OjedaCortes allegedly told police he shot at the other vehicle, a 2013 white Nissan Altima, which he said was his and had been stolen. The driver of the Altima had already fled the scene by the time troopers arrived.
Ojeda-Cortes faces a maximum seven years in prison and $15,000 fine in that case, which is also scheduled for sentencing March 10 before Green. Assistant District Attorney Jim Halligan is prosecuting.