TRENTON -- The Mercer County Narcotics Task Force and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force concluded a seven-month investigation last week with two arrests, and the seizure of heroin, pills and guns, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo J. Onofri reported.
On Thursday night, September 27, officers with the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, the FBI, the Mercer County Tactical Response Team, and the Hamilton, Princeton and Trenton police, under the command of the prosecutor’s Special Investigations Unit, executed multiple search warrants in the city of Trenton.
Police say after observing the target of the investigation, Ruben Stouth, engaging in several apparent drug transactions in the Spring Street area, officers detained him at the corner of Passaic Street and Casper Alley following a brief foot chase.
Officers then searched the Dominican Salon and Barber Shop, 215 Spring Street, and located a working heroin production and packaging facility.
Officers seized approximately 40 bricks of heroin, five grams of raw heroin, a loaded .38 special revolver, $1,239 in cash, 176 tramadol pills, drug ledgers and various items used for packaging heroin, including stamps, stamp pads, boxes of empty glassine bags, rubber bands and tape.
A search warrant was also executed at Stouth’s New York Avenue residence, where officers found a loaded Colt .45 handgun, a metal drug press used to “re-rock” narcotics, and paperwork in Stouth’s name.
Two bundles of suspected heroin were located in the trunk of Stouth’s 2011 BMW 328 and a search of Stouth revealed nine and a half OxyContin pills and $883 in cash.
Prosecutor Onofri stated the seized drugs have an approximate street value of $11,360.
Stouth, 53, is charged with numerous narcotic and weapons offenses.
The prosecutor’s office has filed a motion to have him detained pending trial. Robert Alicea, 48, an occupant of the residence attached to the barber shop, was also arrested in connection with the investigation.
He was charged with numerous narcotic offenses and released pending future court proceedings police said.
Despite having been charged, every defendant is presumed innocent until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.