Accused fentanyl traffickers held on $300K cash bail |

A Haverhill man and woman charged with trafficking more than a pound of fentanyl from an apartment on Franklin Street were ordered held on high bail at their arraignments Monday in Haverhill District Court.

Assistant District Attorney Tom Sholds asked Judge Stephen Abany to hold Tatyana Contreras-Lara, 23, and Ricardo Serrano, 26, both of 116 Franklin St., Apt. 2, second floor, on $500,000 cash bail each.

Sholds said Serrano’s name is believed to be spelled “Cerrano,” based on a court case in Lawrence and probation records. He said Serrano has ties to the Dominican Republic, suggesting he may pose a flight risk.

The judge asked Serrano, who was assisted by an interpreter, to state his date of birth. It took him about a minute to answer with the assistance of an interpreter.

In addition to the charge of fentanyl trafficking, the two are charged with conspiracy to violate drug laws, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of firearm ammunition, and improper storage of a weapon.

After listening to Sholds read a police report, Abany ordered Contreras-Lara and Serrano held on $300,000 cash bail each and scheduled a probable cause hearing for April 9.

Abany referred to the 664 grams found in the Franklin Street apartment during a warrant search Friday as “more than a half of a kilo.”

A kilo, which is short for kilogram, equals 1,000 grams or 2.2 pounds.

Defense lawyers requested any additional police reports, which Sholds said would be coming from members of a Cross Borders Initiative, a local Drug Enforcement Administration task force that worked with police on the investigation.

Reading from a police report, Sholds said Haverhill police and members of the Cross Borders Initiative had been conducting surveillance of 116 Franklin St. after receiving reports of a high volume of foot traffic coming and going from the building.

Sholds said there were instances in which drugs were dropped from a second-floor window to customers below.

Attorney Joseph Gannon, who represented Contreras-Lara, said the woman, who works full time and has no police record, had no drugs on her when arrested and there was nothing to indicate she had any knowledge of drugs in the apartment. He asked the judge to set bail at $2,500.

Serrano’s defense lawyer, Courtney Joy, asked that his bail be set at $5,000 and that he be released on GPS with 24-hour lockdown. Joy said Serrano has two children, lives with his pregnant girlfriend and works as a seasonal landscaper and auto mechanic.

On Friday of last week at 11:23 a.m., police along and members of the Cross Borders Initiative watched as a woman driving a car with New Hampshire plates stopped, got out of her vehicle and entered 116 Franklin St.

Police said buyers from New Hampshire and Maine will come to Haverhill to purchase drugs and often meet their dealers inside their home.

After the woman left, police followed her car and stopped it on Primrose Street. Police said the woman, who lives in the Rochester, New Hampshire area, made up a story about visiting with a friend. When police told the woman that they’d been watching the home, she reached into her pants and underwear and pulled out two plastic bags of white powder and two plastic bags of brown powder totaling 20.6 grams.

Police told the woman they would be summonsing her to court on the charge of fentanyl trafficking and conspiracy to violate drug laws, then let the woman continue on her way.

Police said they stopped Contreras-Lara on Winter Street near Haffner’s Gas and brought her back to the Franklin Street apartment where a search warrant had been executed. Serrano was in the apartment at the time, police said.

Sholds said police found 664 grams of fentanyl in plain view on the kitchen table, and also found a Smith and Wesson .22-caliber handgun and .22-caliber ammunition, both of which were improperly stored.

Sholds said neither Serrano nor Contreras-Lara had Firearms Identification cards.