A Linden resident has admitted to operating a heroin mill out of his home last year, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace H. Park and Linden Police Chief Jonathan Parham jointly announced Friday.
Johnny Kenner, 38, pleaded guilty to charges including first-degree maintaining a controlled dangerous substance production facility and second-degree possession of a firearm while committing a drug offense.
A joint investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office’s Guns, Gangs, Drugs, and Violent Crimes Task Force and the Linden Police Department, spearheaded by Linden Police Detective Martin Jedrzejewski, resulted in Kenner being developed as a suspect.
Investigators executing a search warrant of Kenner’s home and vehicle with the assistance of the Union County Sheriff’s Office in April 2015 recovered more than 50,000 individual folds of heroin, additional quantities of raw heroin, blenders, respirator masks, other drug packaging and processing materials, approximately $225,000 in cash, and a Colt .357 handgun.
Sentencing in the case has been scheduled for January 13, 2017, at which time Kenner is expected to receive a term of up to 16 years in state prison, with at least eight years of that period to be served before the possibility of parole.