It wasn’t the first time Cornelius Crews visited Kinston.
Crews’ Facebook page showed he checked in at the Waffle House on U.S. 70 on Oct. 30, 2011. But his chances of going back to New Jersey were smothered as the police had him covered at his Hampton Inn room Monday.
Officers with the Kinston Department of Public Safety searched the room and seized 132 grams of heroin — 519 dosage units — and $11,497 in cash. They arrested the 36-year-old Elizabeth, N.J. native and the woman he was with, 29-year-old Sarah Harper, of Kinston.
“It’s not often that we run into heroin,” KDPS Director Bill Johnson said. “You do your cocaine, you do your crack, and your marijuana’s out there. Even your meth. But we don’t do a lot of this type of drug. And, especially, to find it in this quantity. That’s what makes it so significant.”
According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, the heroin has an estimated street value of $53,856.
Crews and Harper are charged with trafficking a Schedule I controlled substance, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and maintaining a dwelling for the storage and sale of controlled substances. They are in Lenoir County Jail on bonds of $500,500 each.
Crews has a history of drug convictions in New Jersey. He pled guilty to two narcotics indictments in 1998 and one more in 2001. Criminal records show Crews used a variety of aliases, sometimes using a date of birth two years earlier or two years later than his own. He’s been known by Cedric A. Crews, Charles T. Crews, Cedric A. Cruz, Abdul Jones and Ronald J. Porterfield.
Crews’ Facebook and Google-plus pages list him as the owner of Crews We Do It All For You Services, a small consumer electronics company. He took a trip to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas in January and made posts to his Facebook page as recently as Monday, before his arrest. Crews’ posts reveal him to be a fan of Internet memes and inspirational messages.
Harper, originally from New Bern, was convicted of possession of stolen items in Lenoir County in 2003 and refusing or giving false information to an officer in Jones County in 2010, both misdemeanors. She violated her probation in 2010 and served one month in prison. Harper faces misdemeanor larceny and breaking and entering charges in an unrelated matter.
Harper’s Facebook page shows her to be the mother of a young daughter.
Johnson said a tip a few days ago led to investigators conducting a “knock and talk” at the hotel.
“It’s — and I’ve talked about this before — the importance of collaboration from the community, getting information from the community,” Johnson said. “Because that’s a joint venture, then.”
KDPS investigators aren’t certain whether the large amount of heroin was meant to be funneled further down the line or distributed in the immediate area.
“Whether there is a pipeline, this is one incident, so I think we can’t make the assumption that yes, this is a pipeline operation,” Johnson said. “If we see more of this activity, obviously we will monitor it, notate that. But as of right now, it just turned out to be a very significant drug operation that was happening in the city, and we were just very fortunate that we were able to, at least, stop that.”
The couple was due in Lenoir County District Court Tuesday and Harper will return to court on May 6. A future court date for Crews was not available at press time.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wes.wolfe@kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter @WolfeReports.