A Schuylkill County man is headed to county court on drug trafficking charges after Pottsville police say they found him pretending to sleep in a bedroom with fentanyl pills in his pocket and methamphetamine being bagged up nearby.
Steven Diaz, 47, of Pottsville, waived his preliminary hearing Oct. 19 before Magisterial District Judge James Reiley, sending all six charges to Schuylkill County Court. He faces two felony counts of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, three counts of possession of a controlled substance, and one count of possession of drug paraphernalia.
Police went to a home in the 500 block of Mahantongo St. shortly before 1 a.m. Sept. 18 for a wanted person investigation. The tenant told officers Diaz was upstairs and gave them permission to go to the second floor.
Officers found Diaz alone in a rear bedroom. An officer spotted a glass pipe with residue, a type commonly used to smoke methamphetamine, within arm’s reach of him. Diaz denied the pipe was his but said the shoes lying with it were, police say. While retrieving the pipe, the officer found a bong.
When police asked Diaz to stand up, an officer saw a knotted baggie sticking out of his right front pants pocket that appeared to hold fentanyl pills. Diaz then said, “somebody planted that on me,” according to police.
After the officer removed that bag, Diaz said, “look there is something else there,” and motioned to a resealable bag in the same pocket. He maintained the items weren’t his and that someone planted them on him.
Police say the knotted bag held 26 suspected fentanyl pills, and the resealable bag held four smaller bags of white powder suspected to be fentanyl.
With the tenant’s consent, officers searched the room. Under the shoes Diaz said were his, they found a black tray holding a small plastic tray of bulk crystal substance, a digital scale with crystal residue on it, 24 new small resealable bags, and five used bags with residue. They also found a kitchen plate with loose crystal substance and two small bags of plant material, plus a second digital scale on a closet shelf.
Police say the items on the tray, and the way they were arranged, indicated the bulk methamphetamine was in the process of being “bagged up” and packaged for sale.
Diaz told a corporal he heard police downstairs and got up to “straighten up” the room, then lay back down and pretended to be asleep, according to police.
Field tests showed the pills and the powder positive for fentanyl and the crystal substance positive for methamphetamine, police say. The plant material tested positive for THC. The 26 pills weighed about 8.82 grams combined, the powder about 0.46 grams, the methamphetamine about 11.97 grams, and the plant material about 1.62 grams.
Police filed charges Sept. 22. Reiley arraigned Diaz on Sept. 24 and set bail at $25,000. Diaz remains in Schuylkill County Prison.
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