Thirteen people are facing serious felony counts after being charged with running a large heroin-trafficking organization out of Upper Bucks County, according to District Attorney Matthew Weintraub.
According to county law enforcement, the illegal enterprise allegedly masterminded by two brothers from Richland Township – Sheamus McCarthy, 27, and Casey McCarthy, 22, – ran from late 2013 until late 2016 and sold as many as 400 bundles a week in the Quakertown area, profiting to $1 million in annual sales.
The details of the operation, which were conducted from a remote, wooded family compound and later from locations in Springfield Township and Quakertown, was outlined by an investigating county grand jury in a 195 page grand jury presentment.
“Heroin kills. It has no redeeming value. It’s poison,” Weintraub said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon in Doylestown. “And those who peddle this poison to our citizens – to our children – must be incapacitated.”
At the grand jury’s recommendation, 13 people have been charged with running or participating in the corrupt organization, along with extensive drug-related felonies and misdemeanors. All but two have been apprehended, with bail amounts set in the millions of dollars.
Their alleged crimes, the grand jury concluded, “led to widespread addiction amongst young citizens of the Quakertown area,” caused numerous overdoses and endangered many lives, all while reaping vast financial profits. At least two people who were customers of the Sheamus, 27, and Casey McCarthy, 27, organization died of overdoses, the presentment said.
The McCarthy brothers are alleged to have capitalized on the arrest of another large-scale dealer in Upper Bucks County in early 2014. They essentially filled the void left by that dealer and cemented a business relationship with his main supplier, Antoine Hakim “Twan” Harris, according to details of the nine month long investigation.
Harris is accused of providing heroin to the brothers, typically in 100 bundle increments every few days. The drugs then allegedly flowed through the McCarthy’s to a network of large and small time dealers and users.
The grand jury “investigated fatal and non-fatal overdoses in Upper Bucks County over the past two years, and recommended that we arrest 13 people for their part in a major heroin trafficking ring,” Weintraub said. “It will now be our job to seek justice in these cases.”
Weintraub said the investigation uncovered a “pipeline” of drugs that led from Philadelphia to Bucks County.
Those charged are: Sheamus McCarthy, Casey McCarthy, Thomas James McCarthy, 25, Antoine Hakim Harris, 28, Kenneth Joseph Delp, 26, Daniel Keith Moyer, 25, Michael Levi Wentz, 21, Chad Eric Knechel, 41, Lauren Elizabeth Bihl, 26, Ryan Ernest Mokrynchuk, 24, Jonathan Benjamin King, 27, Melody Annette Clugh, 23, and Jillian Robyn Betts, 24.
In 2014, Bucks County law enforcement stepped up their efforts to cut down on the heroin epidemic. At the time, then-Assistant District Attorney Weibtraub told a crowd in Tullytown that “heroin has a stranglehold on our communities.”
Editor’s Note: All individuals arrested or charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The story was compiled using information from police and public court documents.
