QUINCY — A Quincy man with a history of drug dealing charges is behind bars after police said they searched his girlfriend’s Quincy Center home and seized more than $300,000 worth of drugs, including more than 50 pounds of marijuana and 4 pounds of cocaine.
Robert Cooley, 35, was arraigned Tuesday in Quincy District Court on 10 drug and firearms charges, including individual counts of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana trafficking. Judge John Stapleton set Cooley’s bail at $100,000 cash and revoked his bail in a pending cocaine distribution case out of Middlesex Superior Court. He is due back in court May 1.
Police said officers searched the Quarry Street home of Cooley’s girlfriend, Shamieh Wall, at about 11 p.m Monday and collected 77 individual bags of what they believed to be marijuana, more than 4 pounds of cocaine, more than half an ounce of methamphetamine and more than 500 cartridges filled with THC, a marijuana derivative. Police said they also seized a loaded pistol, 38 rounds of ammunition, $30,000 in cash and a collection of tools and material used for drug sales.
“The commonwealth’s position, your honor, is it’s clear that Robert Cooley deals drugs, that he continues to deal drugs and that his record is entirely distribution of controlled substances, mainly cocaine,” Farley said. Cooley had been out on probation for a previous cocaine distribution charge out of Suffolk Superior Court, Farley said.
Police said officers obtained a warrant to search Wall’s Quarry Street home Monday evening after watching what looked like a drug deal between Cooley and a known crack cocaine dealer, Jeffrey Wilson, 35, of Boston. When Wilson was later pulled over in Boston, police said a woman in the passenger seat had about 8 grams of crack cocaine hidden in her pants and told officers that Wilson had told her to hide it and threatened to kill her if she spoke to police. Police suspected that the crack cocaine had been purchased from Cooley.
Cooley’s defense attorney, Joseph McDonough, questioned whether police had enough evidence to support the warrant to search Wall’s house or to justify the police stop, saying police never saw a drug transaction.
“It was based on the Quincy police officer’s suspicions or hunches,” McDonough said.