Police found about $80,000 worth of cocaine during a second search of a suspected drug dealer's Court Street home Tuesday evening.
Eliezer Ortiz, 37, of 295 Court St., was arrested Saturday in Quincy after a man police believe worked as a distributor for Ortiz was found drunk and asleep in a car in Scituate with several ounces of cocaine and marijuana.
Police seized a small amount of cocaine during an initial search of Ortiz's home Saturday, which was cut short because his 11-year-old daughter had symptoms of a panic attack and had to be taken to the hospital, said Dedham Police Detective Robert Walsh.
After speaking with the girl later, police determined Ortiz had used her as a lookout in past drug deals, and she was worried she would be in trouble, Scituate Police said.
Dedham officers and a Norfolk County police task force found one kilogram of cocaine in a crawl space in the basement when they returned to the house Tuesday around 5 p.m. with a search warrant from Dedham District Court, Walsh said.
Police plan to charge both Ortiz and his his wife, Claudia, 32, who left the house with her children and her sister during the search Tuesday, with trafficking a class B substance over 200 grams.
Although he did not likely deal drugs in Dedham, Ortiz will be charged with a school zone violation, because his house is within 1,000 feet of the Dedham Country Day School, Walsh said.
"That's not uncommon for these guys to have a stash house, but they take their business on the road because they don't want to draw attention to themselves where they live and have their base," Walsh said.
Police are trying to determine the origin of the brick of cocaine, which was branded with what appeared to be a trademark of a raised letter P within a Christmas tree, Walsh said.
Ortiz, who police believe is a major South Shore cocaine trafficker, was the target of a yearlong investigation by Quincy, Scituate, Marshfield and Dedham police.
He was arrested after Dennis Richardson, 24, of Scituate, alerted police to a drug transaction scheduled for Saturday night in the Lincoln Heights apartment complex in Quincy.
Police set up surveillance outside Ortiz's home and say they watched Ortiz place a package in his Dodge pickup truck and drive off with his wife and children.
When Ortiz arrived in Quincy, police were waiting inside the Centre Street building. He was arrested after a brief struggle and charged with cocaine trafficking, police said.
