BEVERLY, Mass. — Police in a Massachusetts city are crediting the grieving father of a heroin overdose victim with helping them find the dealer they believe sold the fatal dose.
Beverly Farms, Massachusetts business owner Frank Raffa Sr., who had just found his son Frank Jr. unconscious on Saturday, handed his son’s iPhone to local police Detective Dana Nicholson “and he told me to take the phone and do whatever I could to find out who sold his son the drugs that did this to him,” Nicholson wrote in a report.
Now, as the Raffa family prepares to bury their son, a man named Jose Paulino, 26, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, is being held on $20,000 bail, charged with heroin distribution, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and conspiracy to violate the drug laws.
Nicholson and other local detectives used the iPhone to pose as Frank Raffa Jr., then lured Paulino to Beverly to buy two more bags of heroin from him.
Since Nicholson doesn’t look like Raffa, the detective came up with another ruse, telling Paulino in a text message that he was sending out one of his employees to conduct the transaction because, he claimed, his father was around.
The plan worked. Nicholson, dressed in the type of clothes and gear a contractor usually wears, and covered with sawdust, walked out to the Volvo and pretended to be an employee of Raffa’s.
After making the deal, other detectives moved in and arrested Paulino, who they say had also hidden five other small “twists” (the corners of plastic bags) in his mouth.
Police believe Paulino had also been distributing heroin in the city on Easter Sunday because he’d sent a text message to Raffa Jr. asking if he wanted drugs.
They would later find pieces of plastic bags with cocaine residue in a toilet at the station, according to a police report. They believe Paulino was hiding that drug between his buttocks and, while in the holding cell after booking, tried to flush the drugs.
After hearing details of the case on Tuesday, Salem District Court Judge Matthew Machera increased Paulino’s bail from the $5,000 set by a bail clerk over the weekend to $20,000 cash, citing the overdose death among his reasons.
Frank Raffa Sr. said he didn’t think twice about handing over his son’s phone. “I would help any police officer,” he said.
He thanked the Beverly police for their quick work and for all the efforts they made before his son’s death as well. “They’re all great,” Raffa said. “They worked so hard for so long to try to save Frankie’s life.”
And while he knows that one small dealer taken off the street won’t save all the other families out there, it’s a start.
“I’m going to work my hardest to help young people,” Raffa said. “We’ve got to get more people behind this.”
Frank Raffa Jr. was 33 and a father of a 3-year-old son. He was preparing to someday take over the family’s construction business, according to his obituary.
In his obituary, family members described his “great sense of humor” and his personable nature, but also his talent for woodworking.
A funeral Mass for Raffa Jr. will take place Friday morning in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. Paulino, meanwhile, is scheduled to appear in court again on April 6.
My son Matthew Was Taken by a Drug INDUCED HOMICIDE 2-5-1981/5-5-2014. There is not a day goes by that I don’t think about him, He Was Doing Good I don’t know what happened on that day doesn’t matter his body was full of Feytanol was well liked,funny,hard worker. There’s a whole in my heart,He lived in Campton N.H and since his death there was one after another. We are the ones left behind with broken hearts, And there are dealers still out killing people. I Love you Matt 💜💜💜💜
My daughter Letisha died on 10/13/2019. She had been a heroin addict for several years. In and out of prison for the last 15 years. She came out her last time in February 2019. After spending the last 3 years in prison, she had been free from drugs. She was diagnosed bi-polar and manic depressive many years ago. Of course she had been labeled as an addict and could not legally obtain any medication that would help her to just feel “normal”. Tish started looking around for something that would quite her mind. She decided to start taking Xanax. No one would give her this medicine and I took her to several doctors and begged for some help. No one would so she was left to buy from the streets. She thought she was being safer with Xanax and had been clean of heroin for over years. Tish bought Xanax from a dealer working out of a body shop in Dallas, TX. Unfortunatly, on Oct. 13th, she bought Xanax from the same person and this particular time it was laced with Fentynal. My baby died from an overdose. She was at a friend’s house when this happened. The friend lived in Garland, TX right outside of Dallas. The police came and asked a few questions. I called the Garland police myself and told them exactly where she bought the drug. The strange part is her cellphone has never been found. She never went anywhere without it. This phone would have been an asset to investigate text messages and places where she went. The Garland police treated her as just another junkie who died. They could have cared less. I wrote to them, called multiple times and nothing was ever done. To this date, her phone has never been found. How does that happen? Why were the Police not interested in even that? This dealer killed my daughter and no one cares. I would love for Texas to pass laws where Police have to investigate and charge these murderers.
My daughter, Kimberly Tomasi died from a fentanyl overdose in Stoneham, MA on July 2, 2018. I am in probate court in Middlesex County, MA so I can get her health records released to me.