Prosecutors link man, slain informant

Woman was drug courier, feds say

Price Montgomery and the woman he is accused of killing four years ago talked regularly by cell phone and traveled to Newark, N.J., where agents said they bought heroin from Montgomery’s supplier, according to wiretapped calls played for a jury Friday.

Montgomery is on trial in U.S. District Court on charges that he killed Tina Crawford on Aug. 22, 2014, to keep her from talking to federal prosecutors about his New Jersey-supplied heroin ring. He also faces multiple drug and gun counts along with a co-defendant, James Perrin, who is on trial with him.

Prosecutors have said Ms. Crawford was a drug courier for Montgomery on trips to his source in Newark, the owner of a paintball business in a warehouse district who has since been convicted in federal court in New Jersey.

Ms. Crawford, who worked for Alcosan at the time, made drug runs for Montgomery but also considered him her friend, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Heidi Grogan.

In one set of wiretapped calls between the two in the spring of 2014, he asks her to buy tickets to a Jay Z and Beyoncé concert in Cincinnati and in another she warns him about what she thinks might be a bogus charge on his credit card for a rental car in Arizona.

Agents tapping phones and conducting surveillance on Montgomery and Ms. Crawford put them both in Newark in late April 2017 and again in early May, where the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says they bought heroin for delivery to Montgomery’s customers in Pittsburgh.

Matthew Truesdell, a state attorney general’s agent, spent much of Friday reading the texts and call transcripts that showed Montgomery and Ms. Crawford were close associates.

He also said he saw Montgomery on his motorcycle and talking to her outside her home in Manchester on May 6, 2014. Wiretaps indicate she made a drug run that night to New Jersey.

All of the surveillance and intercepted calls culminated in a June 8, 2014, raid on Montgomery’s house in Mount Washington that he rented from former Pittsburgh Steeler Deshea Townsend.

Agents said they recovered a huge stash of heroin, 16 guns and other evidence of large-scale drug trafficking.

The next day, agents raided Ms. Crawford’s house, where she lived with her girlfriend.

Agent Truesdell said that was the last time he saw her.

Asked by Ms. Grogan why, he said, “Because she was murdered on Aug. 22, 2014.”

The testimony marked the second day of Montgomery and Perrin’s trial before U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak. The trial is expected to last at least two weeks.

Perrin is charged only with gun and drug counts, not with homicide, but prosecutors have described him as Montgomery’s “righthand man” in the drug ring.

The two were often seen together at Montgomery’s house on William Street that was under constant surveillance through the use of a pole camera and an agent with a telescope.

On Thursday, Ms. Grogan told the jury that Montgomery was one of two gunmen who shot Ms. Crawford and wounded her mother, Patsy. She did not mention the second shooter, but in previous court proceedings prosecutors said they believe he is Glenn Thomas Manchester, Montgomery’s cousin.

He pleaded guilty last month to being an accessory after the fact for ditching the getaway car in Virginia.