If he had just kept a key to his father’s house, Brian Vincenzi wouldn’t be facing felony drug charges.
Vincenzi, 33, of Carver, was allegedly trying to break into his father’s home on Grabau Drive in Plymouth just before 5 p.m. on Dec. 1 when someone called the police.
It was dark and rainy, and when police arrived, they found him behind the house, barefoot and in gym shorts. A window screen was laying on a porch, and a door was propped open, police said.
His father had recently died, Vincenzi told police, and he wanted to collect some belongings. But while he spoke, police noticed a plastic bag containing what looked like drugs on the ground. They also spotted several credit cards, many in another in person’s name, they alleged.
Police said they found two more bags — one with what looked like cocaine and another with a substance believed to be fentanyl. They also found a glass cylinder believed to be used to smoke crack, their report says.
Vincenzi was arrested for alleged fentanyl and cocaine trafficking. But he wasn’t the first person Plymouth police charged with cocaine and fentanyl trafficking that day.
Just two hours earlier, Deion McCassie, 34, of Taunton, was arrested in the 7-Eleven parking lot on Court Street after plainclothes police, who knew him, saw him sitting in a car.
He got out and tried to hide by lying face down on the pavement between two parked cars, police said. In his hand, they said, were a plastic bag and a glass pipe, which they believed was a crack pipe.
In the car, police found another bag with what appeared to be cocaine and a digital scale, they said. They found additional plastic bags with substances that were later tested at the police station and allegedly found to contain cocaine and fentanyl.
Police also seized more than $1,000 in cash that McCassie allegedly hid in his clothes and body.
“Through my training and experience as a narcotics investigator, I recognized that items collected to be consistent with the packaging and street level distribution of fentanyl, and cocaine,” wrote Plymouth police Detective Sean Ketterer.
Substances seized in both arrests were tested, preliminarily, at the Plymouth police station and were found to exceed the weight required for trafficking charges — felonies that carry mandatory minimum sentences. The drugs were then sent to the state drug lab for further testing.
Both men were charged with additional crimes, including drug possession and possession to distribute.
Neither McCassie nor Vincenzi could be reached for comment. It was unclear whether they have been assigned lawyers yet.
Addiction is still a major problem in Plymouth, police said. “There are a lot of opioids on our streets,” said Plymouth Police Captain Jason Higgins. “We are extremely proud of the efforts of our narcotics and patrol divisions who constantly strive to take them off of our streets.”
According to Plymouth County Outreach, the number of people in the county who have overdosed has dropped over the past few years — from 156 in 2021 to 106 in 2022. So far this year, there have been 92 reported overdoses, of which 15 were fatal.
Plymouth County Outreach, working with 27 town police departments and Bridgewater State University police, offers treatment and other services to anyone who has overdosed.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.