Cops: Dealer paid girl to hide drugs in her bedroom

MIDDLETOWN – A Portland man was held on $250,000 bond after police alleged he was using a 16-year-old girl to hide $3,600 worth of fentanyl as part of his drug sale operation, reports said.

Angel Gonzalez, 35, of Marlborough Street, was taken into custody May 3 as officers executed a search warrant on his person and an apartment on Liberty Street they believed he was using to peddle fentanyl in the city, police said.

Gonzalez was grabbed after he left the Liberty Street apartment, officers said.

He was carrying $1,650, including three $20 bills that had been used as part of a controlled buy with a confidential informant, eight Oxycondin pills, a cell phone and a key ring with keys, police said. Officers also executed a search warrant at Liberty Street apartment where he was allegedly selling drugs, reports said.

Police had to force their way into the second-floor apartment that was slated to be searched because the occupants didn’t answer the door, reports said. When they got inside they found two people, one of which admitted that Gonzalez had been staying in the apartment on and off and paying the him for the privilege in heroin, police said.

The man confirmed that Gonzalez had been using the apartment to make illegal drug sales at least three or four times a day, police said. A small amount of white powder believed to be fentanyl was found in the apartment along two empty wax paper folds used to store the drug and a digital scale that also contained white powder, police said.

The third-floor residents of the building denied they had any knowledge of Gonzalez’s activities, but when they agreed to a search, an officer used a key from the 35-year-old’s key ring to open a safe that was stored in the bedroom closet of a 16-year-old girl, reports said.

The safe contained 360 bags of suspected fentanyl and a bag of jewelry that was determined to owned by the residents, police said.

Gonzalez admitted that he was paying the 16-year-old $50 to hide the drugs, police said. He was charged with two counts of possession of narcotics with intent to sell, two counts of possession of narcotics and risk of injury to a child.

Gonzalez was held on $250,000 bond until his arraignment in Middletown Superior Court May 6.