Woman faces trial for using daughters to sell drugs
NORRISTOWN >> A Norristown woman must answer to charges in Montgomery County Court that she was involved in drug trafficking and endangered her daughters by using her children to help sell the drugs.
Suleyka Santiago, 34, of the 400 block of West Logan Street, waived her preliminary hearing before District Court Judge Margaret Hunsicker on charges of solicitation of minors to traffic drugs, endangering the welfare of children, possession with intent to deliver controlled substances, possession of controlled substances and criminal use of a communication facility in connection with alleged incidents that occurred in June.
Santiago will remain free on $10,000 unsecured bail while she awaits a formal arraignment hearing on the charges in county court on Sept. 21. During the arraignment hearing, a judge will schedule a trial date.
With the charges, prosecutors alleged Santiago was “engaged in the illicit drug trade by regularly conducting street level pill sales” in the county.
“Investigators have conducted a series of controlled purchases of drugs and during the first controlled purchase, Santiago arranged the drug transaction, but allowed her juvenile daughters, ages 12 and 14, to conduct the transaction inside Santiago’s rental vehicle while Santiago was nearby inside an establishment,” county Detective Andrew Rook alleged in a criminal complaint.
During a second controlled drug buy, Santiago met with an informant and conducted the drug transaction, detectives alleged.
The investigation began in June when an informant told county and Norristown detectives that Santiago had taken over the alleged drug trafficking enterprise of her boyfriend, Kenneth Scott, 48, of Powell Street in Norristown, who was arrested last year and is in jail awaiting court action on charges of possession with intent to deliver controlled substances. At that time, Scott was selling what was confirmed by lab tests to be counterfeit oxycodone pills comprised of fentanyl, according to a news release issued by county prosecutors.
The informant claimed Santiago was distributing fentanyl pills to her drug customers in and around Norristown, according to the arrest affidavit filed by Rook.
During the ensuing investigation, an informant arranged to purchase oxycodone pills from Santiago at a location outside an undisclosed Norristown establishment and detectives placed the meeting location under surveillance, according to court papers.
When the informant entered the passenger side of a rental vehicle linked to Santiago they observed two juvenile females inside Santiago’s vehicle and subsequently identified them as Santiago’s 12- and 14-yearold daughters, according to the arrest affidavit. One of the daughters took the money from the informant and the other provided the informant with the drugs, detectives alleged.
Santiago was inside a nearby establishment at the time of the alleged drug transaction, according to court papers.
During the surveillance, detectives observed the juveniles exiting the vehicle and entering the establishment and then returning to the vehicle on multiple occasions and Santiago was later observed leaving the establishment and getting into the driver’s seat of the vehicle and departing with the two juveniles, according to the criminal complaint.
The pills purchased by the informant were blue and stamped “M30” and are suspected of being fake oxycodone pills and are undergoing lab testing, prosecutors said.
During a second controlled buy in June, the informant arranged for another purchase of 30 mg oxycodone pills and this time conducted a hand-tohand purchase of the pills with Santiago, according to the criminal complaint.
Assistant District Attorney Evan Correia is prosecuting the case.