Bristol Twp. Man Arrested With 2 Pounds Of Fentanyl: DA

BRISTOL TOWNSHIP, PA — Police say a Bristol Township man was arrested Tuesday with more than two pounds of fentanyl — an opioid that experts say can be deadly in even small doses.

Bucks County detectives, Levittown-area police and federal agents, along with New Jersey State Police, searched homes in Bristol Township and Morrisville early Tuesday before arresting Lawrence Willie Priester, 29, of Bristol.

He is charged with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance and was sent to Bucks County Correctional Facility on $250,000 bail. Priester also has charges pending in New Jersey.

Investigators served a search warrant at 724 Hidden Forest Ct. in Bristol, where prosecutors say they found four sandwich bags containing suspected drugs inside a black bag with the words "Thank You" written on it. The bag was in a living room closet, according to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office.

A field test showed the substance was fentanyl and weighed just over two pounds, prosecutors said. They say the street value of that amount of the drug is $120,000.

Investigators say they also found drug paraphernalia at the home, including a scale, a cutting agent to decrease the potency of the fentanyl, a grinder to mix the drugs and sandwich bags.

Falls Township Police, along with the other agencies, also served a search warrant at an apartment at 250 Plaza Blvd. in Morrisville, where Priester was arrested.

Prosecutors say that, during Priester's arrest, he was told that his home was also searched and that he replied, "Whatever you find there belongs to me."

"When I think of all of the thousands of lives that we’ve potentially saved with this arrest and drug seizure, I’m grateful for law enforcement’s interstate investigation and collaboration in locking this guy up," said Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub. "But the fight’s not over."

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid similar to morphine but considered 50-100 times more powerful. As a prescription drug, it is used to treat patients in severe pain, often after surgery.

Illegally, it is often mixed with other drugs like cocaine and heroin because it takes very little of the drug to produce a high. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl are now the most common drugs involved in overdose deaths in the United States, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In 2017, nearly 60 percent of the nation's opiod-related deaths involved fentanyl, the institute reports, up from 14.3 percent in 2010.

The investigation was conducted by Bucks County detectives, Bristol Township Police, Falls Township Police, the DEA Task Force Group 51 and New Jersey State Police.