Repeat Offender Sentenced To Jail For Drugs, Weapon Charges

Quaison Ellis (Photo courtesy Ocean County Jail)

  BARNEGAT – A local man will be serving at least five years for dealing heroin and having a stolen gun, police said.

  Quaison Ellis, 25, of Barnegat was sentenced to ten years New Jersey State Prison on a charge of Possession of More than One Half Ounce but Less than Five Ounces of Heroin with Intent to Distribute. Additionally, he received three years for burglary and another ten years for the same drug charge from a different arrest. The three sentences will be served at the same time. However, he won’t be able to have parole for the first five years of the term because of a charge of being a Certain Person Not to Possess a Firearm.

  Police said that detectives were taking part in a narcotics investigation, watching a home on Hawthorne Lane September 10, 2021. They watched Ellis leave and get into the front passenger seat of a vehicle. They followed this vehicle to Paterson. There, they watched him meet with someone and place a bag on the trunk. The vehicle started heading back south when police pulled it over and found approximately 1,550 wax folds of heroin.

  Over a year later, on December 9, 2022, police used a search warrant on the Barnegat home on Hawthorne Lane. They collected cocaine and heroin and a Keltec .32 caliber firearm. The gun had been stolen from a vehicle in Stafford on September 29, 2022.

  Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer  acknowledged the efforts of Supervising Assistant Prosecutor Meghan O’Neill and Assistant Prosecutor Taylor Toscano who handled the case on behalf of the State, and commended the Barnegat Police Department, Barnegat Crime Reduction Unit, Barnegat K-9 Unit, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics Strike Force, Stafford Police Department, Stafford Drug Enforcement Unit, and Ocean County Regional SWAT Team, for their collective and cooperative assistance in connection with these investigations resulting in Ellis’ guilty pleas, and now his state prison sentence.