Crime & Safety

Quakertown Man Was Delivering Oxycodone, Police Say

Hellertown Police say Michael Timothy Pickett, 29, of Yardley Court, was in possession of 173 of the controlled prescription painkiller pills when he was stopped on Main Street on Nov. 2, 2011.

Hellertown police have charged a Quakertown man seven months after a Main Street traffic stop yielded 173 pills of the painkiller Oxycodone, court records say.

Meanwhile, the records also describe how the state police computer crime lab was able to retrieve a deleted text message from the suspect’s phone about a pending drug delivery.

The suspect, Michael Timothy Pickett, 29, of 208 Yardley Court later admitted to police he was going to deliver some of the pills to another person. He also admitted “he has dealt narcotics in the past,” according to a criminal complaint filed by borough Patrolman John Donato.

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The complaint says Pickett was a passenger in a blue, four-door 2007 Honda Civic when police stopped it around 9pm on Nov. 2, 2011 at 1130 Main St. The car was stopped for “a summary vehicle code violation.”

The complaint does not specify the violation, although it notes both Pickett and the driver had suspended driver’s licenses. The complaint says nothing about charges against the driver.

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Donato conducted an impound inventory of the car and seized an unlabeled pill bottle containing 173 pills of three different varieties. All the pills were later confirmed to be Oxycodone. Also found were several empty pill containers from different pharmacies.

Donato took Pickett into custody for possession of a controlled substance and seized $572 and a black iPhone from him.

Donato later obtained a search warrant for data in the phone and submitted the phone to the state police computer crime lab to have the data extracted.

The lab was able to retrieve a text message that had been deleted before the phone was seized, the complaint says. The text message was sent between 8:05pm and 8:15pm on the night of the traffic stop. It concerned setting up a delivery of “suspended narcotics.”

Pickett was arraigned late Wednesday by on-duty District Judge Diane Marakovits of Northampton. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance, drug, device or cosmetic with intent to deliver and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.

He was committed to Northampton County Prison after failing to post $10,000 bail.


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