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Officers responding to the victim’s home found two wax folds containing both drugs and bearing a unique stamp, which they linked to Thomas Kane Miller, 38, of Somerset, U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said.
Investigators learned that the victim and Miller had arranged to meet shortly before the October 2022 overdose, the U.S. attorney added.
Miller had also been found 10 days earlier with several wax folds of the same drugs with the same stamp, Sellinger said.
A U.S. magistrate judge in Newark earlier this week ordered Miller held pending trial.
He's charged with possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl and heroin and one count of distribution of fentanyl and heroin that resulted in a death.
Miller is also charged with possession with the intent to distribute fentanyl and heroin from the prior incident, Sellinger said.
The U.S. attorney credited special agents of the New York DEA Strike Force and members of the Somerset and Middlesex county prosecutors’ offices with the investigation leading to the charges.
The agencies work together under the auspices of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Strike Force Initiative, which focuses on disrupting and dismantling “the most significant drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations,” Sellinger said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenny Chung of his Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force /Narcotics Unit in Newark is handling the case, he said.
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