Butler, Hamilton counties seize large amounts of fentanyl and cocaine
Jun. 5—A three-month narcotics trafficking investigation netted the seizure of a large amount of fentanyl and cocaine.
At around 7 a.m. Thursday, the Butler County Undercover Regional Narcotics Task Force searched an apartment in the 5200 block of Camelot Drive in Fairfield. Later, with the support of the Hamilton County Drug Abuse Taskforce, authorities searched an apartment in the 2300 block of Hidden Meadows Drive in Springfield.
The investigation ended with the arrest of Errol Baker, 42, who is being held in the Butler County Jail on two first-degree felony counts of drug possession. He was arrested in Fairfield and is held on a $500,000 bond.
Officer recovered from the two apartments about 120 grams of fentanyl, which could kill as many as 60,000 people; more than 90 grams of cocaine, $5,400, a 2017 Mercedes-Benz vehicle, and a Slingshot motorcycle.
"This case represents the continued dedication of the BURN Task Force to identifying and removing high-level drug traffickers from our communities," said Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones. "Fentanyl is a deadly poison, and those who profit from its distribution will be held accountable."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
3 days ago
- New York Times
A Man Drove a Car Down Rome's Spanish Steps. It Did Not Go Great.
What's the quickest way down Rome's Spanish Steps? Definitely not by car. Before dawn on Tuesday morning, an 80-year-old man behind the wheel of a Mercedes A-Class tried to navigate the sedan down the iconic steps, which are closed to vehicles, according to Rome's police department. The car made it part of the way down but got stuck, the authorities said. Nobody was injured and the police did not announce any damage to the monument. The driver tested negative for alcohol, the police said in a statement. The police did not identify the driver or say where he was from, but did release a photo of him, standing by the vehicle and dressed in a suit, talking to a police officer. According to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, the man was in a state of confusion. A video of the episode circulating online shows the car slowly making its way down the steps. The fire department later removed the car from the steps with a crane. Sowad Mujibullah was working a night shift at a nearby hotel just before 4 a.m. on Tuesday when he heard a loud sound and saw the car come down the steps. He initially thought that it was part of a movie shoot, but 'then I realized, no, it was not like that, because nobody was there.' He captured video of the incident, which he called shocking. The steps are one of the most historic places in Italy, he said in a phone interview, adding: 'It should not be destroyed by these crazy things.' Destroying or damaging a monument or property that has significant value in Rome is punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine of more than 2,000 euros ($2,300). Prohibitions against vehicles on the Spanish Steps, Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti in Italian, have not prevented other incidents. In 2022, American tourists pushed an electric scooter down the steps, causing 25,000 euros in damage. The same year, a man drove a Maserati sports car down the steps after taking a wrong turn.
CNN
3 days ago
- CNN
Elderly man drives down Rome's Spanish Steps and gets stuck
An 80-year-old man has told police he was 'wrong' to drive down Rome's famed Spanish Steps, after firefighters had to recover his vehicle from the landmark in the early hours of Tuesday. The man was not injured in the incident but he was nonetheless taken to the hospital, where he tested negative for both drug and alcohol consumption, city police said in a statement. The driver, who has not been identified, told officers he was 'going to work' and had taken a wrong turn, according to Italian media reports. It is unclear if he was using a GPS device. The gray Mercedes-Benz A-Class car got stuck halfway down the 18th-century staircase around 4 a.m. on Tuesday, the Italian Fire Brigade said in a statement. The car had been stopped by police officers who were patrolling the area. The fire department said it had to use a crane at the foot of the steps to lift the vehicle off the stairway. Some damage to the vehicle was visible, but it is unclear whether that was the result of Tuesday's incident. The steps are currently closed to the public. The normal procedure when Rome's historic monuments are involved in an incident is for archaeologists to inspect them for damage. The man had a valid driver's license, according to Italian media. Under Italian law, drivers over the age of 80 are obliged to renew their license every two years and undergo a medical examination, which includes basic cognition questions. Back in 2022, a Saudi man tangled with the law after he drove a Maserati down the Spanish Steps. He was charged with aggravated damage to cultural heritage and monuments after the car caused fractures to the 16th and 29th steps of the right-hand flight rising up from the Piazza di Spagna. That same year two American tourists were fined and briefly banned from Rome's city center after damaging the steps with electric scooters. The steps owe their name to the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See, which is hosted in a palazzo in the square below. A two-year, 1.5 million-euro ($1.7 million) restoration of the landmark — which has appeared in numerous movies, most notably 1953's 'Roman Holiday,' starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck — was completed in 2015.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Rich in gold bars but poor in Trump pardons
For months, former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has praised President Donald Trump. The Democrat has explicitly echoed Trump's criticism of the president's own criminal prosecutions, which Trump likes to describe, without evidence, as the political weaponization of the justice system. Now Menendez is reporting to federal prison, beginning his 11-year sentence after these months of attempts to sweet-talk Trump failed to win him the pardon or commutation for which he appeared to be angling. That's even as other allies of the president and those who had cozied up to him saw their prosecutions and sentences dropped. The 71-year-old Menendez, who spent more than 30 years in the House and later the Senate and rose to become the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, resigned in disgrace last year after being convicted of accepting bribes — including gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz and cash — in exchange for helping three businessmen and the Egyptian government. He arrived on Tuesday to the Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill in Minersville, Pennsylvania. Nine days after Trump's inauguration — the day Menendez was sentenced — the former senator tagged the president in a social media post in which he claimed that 'this whole process has been nothing but a political witch hunt.' 'President Trump is right. This process is political and has been corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system,' Menendez said. Last week, he again took to X and lambasted prosecutors in a series of posts he titled 'How weaponization works.' He noted that the US attorney for the Southern District of New York — the office that prosecuted Menendez — also oversaw 'investigations of the Trump organization, the Trump inauguration committee and others associated with DJT and the Republican Party.' Meanwhile, the Trump administration has gutted the federal government's ability to fight public corruption, shrinking its public integrity section — created in the wake of the Watergate scandal — and stripping it of much of its power. The start of Menendez's prison sentence comes after a federal appeals court last week denied his bid to remain out of prison on bail as he appeals his conviction. A judge did allow Menendez to attend his stepdaughter's wedding in Massachusetts over the weekend and to escort his wife, Nadine Menendez, who was also convicted on corruption charges and is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. (Her own sentencing will take place in September.) The president has issued a flurry of pardons and halted prosecutions for his political allies. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected as a Democrat and is seeking reelection this year as an independent, saw his corruption charges dropped by Trump's Justice Department, as Adams helped the Trump administration enact its immigration agenda. Trump in February pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat who was removed from office and later convicted of charges that included a scheme to sell an appointment to fill the vacant Senate seat left by then-President Barack Obama. Blagojevich long sought to align himself with Trump and called himself a 'Trumpocrat' — a Democrat who supports Trump. Trump has also pardoned a long list of political allies — including nearly all of the January 6, 2021, defendants. Trump pardoned reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were serving prison sentences following their 2022 conviction on fraud and tax charges, after their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, cozied up to the Trump family and appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. 'No MAGA left behind,' Ed Martin, Trump's short-lived interim US attorney for Washington, DC, said on X after Trump pardoned a former Virginia sheriff, Scott Jenkins, who was convicted of conspiracy, honest services fraud and — just like Menendez — bribery.
