On the witness of the 82,400 Fentanyl pills, 1.8 lbs heroin, 3.8 lbs methamphetamine $173,138 US currency and two firearms Auburn Police say they seized from a Kent man’s apartment after serving two residential search-arrest warrants on it on the afternoon of April 20, police arrested its 32-year-old tenant.
The suspect is in King County Jail on suspicion of violating the Uniform Controlled Substances Act relating to the manufacture, delivery or possession of narcotics with intent to deliver, and because he is a convicted felon, with unlawful possession of firearms, although the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has not yet charged him with a crime.
For this reason, the Auburn Reporter is withholding the suspect’s name, but a KCPAO spokesman said the office anticipates filing formal charges against him early next week when it receives the case from Auburn Police.
The bust capped a several months-long investigation by the Special Investigations Unit of the Auburn Police Department.
At the suspect’s first appearance before a judge on April 21, the KCPAO argued he is a danger to the community, unlikely to return to court if released, and asked the judge to hold him in jail on $300,000 bail. The judge found probable cause to hold him for unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree and set bail at $250,000.
The KCPAO expects the suspect to stay in jail on the bail amount set by the first appearance judge before the charging decision.
In a 2021 Auburn case in which the suspect was the defendant, the prosecutor had asked for $25,000 bail, arguing that he was a danger to the community. The first appearance judge in that case found probable cause for drug possession with intent and unlawful possession of a firearm in the second degree and set bail at $25,000. The documents required for filing the case were referred to the KCPAO’s office months later and are being reviewed now.
Prior to that, the last case involving the suspect that police referred to the office was in 2014, and it saw him convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree and domestic-violence-felony-violation of a court order. His sentence, ordered April 10, 2015, was 75 months for count 1 and 60 months for count 2, with 123 days credit for time already served. That was handled by the Department of Corrections, and the sentence was in line with statewide guidelines, according to the spokesman.
