About 11 p.m. Feb. 16, a 23-year-old Derby man sent a text message to Bradley Commerford: “At the door.”
“Comin,” Commerford replied. “Ight,” the man texted back.
About seven hours later, the 23-year-old man, Commerford’s lifelong friend, was found dead of a suspected heroin overdose at his Hawthorne Avenue apartment.
A federal agent believes the text messages show Commerford participating in the drug deal that prompted the man’s death.
The text traffic between the overdose victim and Commerford is among the details contained in a 17-page affidavit from DEA Special Agent Dana Mofenson.
Police believe Commerford also sold heroin that caused two nonfatal overdoses in Shelton the day before the 23-year-old Derby man’s death.
A second Derby man died from a suspected overdose Feb. 17. That case remains under investigation.
Commerford appeared briefly at U.S. District Court in New Haven Thursday afternoon.
He has been behind bars since Feb. 18, when police who had obtained a probation violation arrest warrant stopped his car as he and an associate were en route to Waterbury to meet their heroin supplier, “Duke,” the affidavit alleges.
Commerford had $765 cash on him at the time, according to police.
Building The Case
Interviewed later by DEA agents and Shelton cops, Commerford admitted using heroin and became “visibly upset” when talking about the 23-year-old man’s fatal overdose, saying he had known the man his entire life.
But he was otherwise “not forthcoming during the interview with respect to distributing heroin to others.”
Other witnesses were.
The dead man’s mother, for example, told cops that a week before his death, the man had confided in her that he was using heroin.
She also told cops her son had said he bought heroin from a man named “Brad.” When she gave her son’s cell phone to police, they found the man’s phone number “to be in frequent contact” with Commerford’s.
Police later spoke to one of the Shelton overdose victims, an 18-year-old man, who said he had bought five bags of heroin from Commerford.
He snorted one, he told police, and “within seconds” knew he was overdosing.
The night of the Shelton overdoses, a “source of information” had also given police the phone number of the 18-year-old man’s dealer.
The number came back registered to Commerford.
Court Appearance
As cops working with a DEA task force built the case against Commerford in the days following the overdoses, police obtained a warrant charging him with violating his probation in two 2014 cases in which he pleaded guilty to selling drugs.
At the time of his Feb. 18 arrest on the probation violation warrant, Commerford was facing charges in relation to a Jan. 15 motor vehicle stop in Derby in which he was charged with possession of marijuana, interfering with an officer, and driving a vehicle without a license, registration, or insurance.
He had posted $2,500 bond in that case.
On Thursday Commerford was formally charged in federal court with distributing heroin and possession of heroin with intent to distribute.
He was led into Judge Merriam’s third-floor courtroom in handcuffs and the beige prison garb of Bridgeport Correctional Center, where he had been locked up since last week.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Spector said during the hearing that the charges, if Commerford is convicted of them, carry possible sentences of between 20 years and life behind bars.
“These are very serious charges,” Judge Merriam told Commerford. “The potential for a long sentence is there.”
The judge scheduled a probable cause hearing in the case for March 10 and ordered Commerford detained “without prejudice,” meaning his lawyer could argue for his release at a later date.
Outside the courtroom, Commerford’s mother declined to comment to reporters. The Valley Indy had also reached out to Commerford’s family Monday, after they posted on social media that police and the media were twisting the facts in the case.
