A 70-year-old man is facing charges of selling a kilogram of heroin to undercover officers — and of having a total of $1 million of the drug — in the Portage Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
Manuel Mejia Rojas, who lives in the Little Village neighborhood, was charged with a class X felony of delivering a controlled substance, and another felony of having over 900 grams of heroin, according to Cook County states attorneys. He was held on $300 bail.
Rojas allegedly sold over a kilogram of heroin to undercover officers about 7 p.m. in the 4700 block of West Belmont Avenue, according to Chicago police. Officers also found about seven kilograms of heroin in his possession.
The drugs had an estimated street value of over $1 million, according to prosecutors.
“That’s a lot of drugs, son,” Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. said at the bail hearing.
Rojas stood wearing a Purdue University windbreaker Saturday at a bail hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on the Southwest Side.
Judge Lyke asked what bail he could afford to pay, and Rojas replied $300. Lyke set his bail to $300 and order him to be placed on electronic monitoring.
Local
Rojas was scheduled to appear in court again on Nov. 15 at Branch 44 in the Lawndale neighborhood.
