Heroin Sting Nets 2 Phoenixville Dealers, DA Says

Two men police say were drug dealers operating out of the Phoenixville area were arrested and charged as part of a countywide crackdown on the heroin trade, the Chester County District Attorney’s Office announced on Monday.

District Attorney Tom Hogan said that heroin is a drug that, owing to its unique addictive potential, deserves special attention from parents and law enforcement. In 2012 alone, there were 34 recorded deaths in Chester County where the deceased had heroin in their system.

“Chester County law enforcement is cracking down on heroin dealers. Heroin does not discriminate—from Main Line suburbs to rural locations, heroin turns kids into hard-core addicts or sends them to an early grave. We are going to keep locking up these dealers until they understand that they should stay out of Chester County,” the DA said in a press release.

As part of the bust, Joseph McIntosh, 31 and of Philadelphia, and Jeffrey Gavin, 34 and of East Pikeland, were both charged with dealing the drug, and will be prosecuted.

The case against McIntosh began when the parents of a 22-year-old borough woman discovered their daughter dead in her bedroom from a heroin overdose. Using a combination of interviews with the girl’s friends and a study of telephone records, police say they determined that McIntosh was the woman’s dealer.

On April 12, police say they had an informant call McIntosh and place an order for heroin, and when he arrived to make the delivery at the 7-Eleven in Phoenixville, he was arrested and taken into custody.

Gavin was also arrested on April 12, when police executed a search warrant in his home on the unit block of Ruth Avenue. Police say they had received information that he was selling heroin bundles out of the residence. (A bundle, according to authorities, is 10 discrete baggies of heroin.)

Police say they found three bundles on Gavin’s person during the raid, and another 25 in the residence. Each bundle was labeled “Trick or Treat.” (Heroin dealers are known to use brand names to distinguish their product from others’.) Gavin also possessed, according to police, drug paraphernalia and $760 cash at the time of the raid.

Gavin and McIntosh were two of ten men who were arrested during the crackdown, the DA announced.