FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP (Somerset County) — Investigators spent weeks listening to the conversations and messages on Eric Pittman’s cell phone in 2005. The language was cryptic, and the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office says it was meant to conceal his illicit trade. But after tapping his phone and following him to a variety of locations in Somerset and Middlesex counties, Pittman...
A map view of Fairmount Street in Franklin, Somerset County, where police say Eric Pittman operated dealing drugs.FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP (Somerset County) — Investigators spent weeks listening to the conversations and messages on Eric Pittman’s cell phone in 2005.
The language was cryptic, and the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office says it was meant to conceal his illicit trade. But after tapping his phone and following him to a variety of locations in Somerset and Middlesex counties, Pittman was arrested and charged with a string of drug and weapons offenses.
Now the 37-year-old Franklin Township man is on trial before state Superior Court Judge John Pursel in Somerville. The charges against Pittman include possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm while committing a drug offense. If convicted of the drug charge, he faces up to 20 years in state prison. Testimony will begin this morning.
Pittman’s defense lawyers insist the state was after Pittman, but has nothing concrete to link him to the guns and drugs that were confiscated. Pittman’s fingerprints weren’t on any of the items seized.
The case stems from a seven-month investigation dubbed “Operation X-Treme Justice.” Pittman was one of the targets of the probe and goes by the street name “Father Justice,” the prosecutor’s office has said. While the case is being prosecuted in Somerset, the offenses occurred in two counties and included cooperation from multiple agencies including Franklin, New Brunswick and Edison police, and drug task forces in both counties.
The investigation culminated on June 30 and July 1, 2005, when detectives raided three dwellings authorities linked to Pittman: Fairmount Street in Franklin, Seaman Street in New Brunswick and Grandview Avenue in Edison, the state has said.
During today’s opening arguments, Assistant Prosecutor Frank Kolodzieski II said the evidence will take jurors on a virtual journey back to June 2005, when detectives acted on information culled from a wiretap investigation. “Those conversations were veiled. They were cryptic,” Kolodzieski said. No one specifically asked for crack, he said. Instead, someone would say, “I need three, man” or “Can I get three meals for 50?”
During the raids, police confiscated five guns, one of them defaced, and a bow and 18 arrows. There were no drugs at the house Pittman shared with his girlfriend in Franklin, but police found cocaine in New Brunswick and Edison, including a 2.1-pound brick of cocaine at the Edison apartment, Kolodzieski said.
“The defendant had the ability to possess the guns and these drugs,” Kolodzieski said.
Defense lawyers Steven and Joshua Altman – father and son, respectively – insist the calls were not nefarious. The case is an example of “what the state can do when they want you,” Steven Altman said.
“You have the state sitting there surreptitiously listening to your phone conversations, listening to your voice mails,” the elder Altman said. But just because someone uses slang does not mean the person is talking about drugs. Investigators assumed, “if I don’t know, if I don’t understand, it has to be drugs.”
Altman noted Kolodzieski’s statement, that Pittman’s fingerprints were not found on the guns or drugs. Altman added Pittman’s mother and other relatives live at the man’s childhood home in New Brunswick and Pittman’s brother is listed on the lease in Edison.