45 pounds of marijuana found in South Side drug raid, DA says

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Police and the District Attorney’s Narcotics Enforcement Team broke down the door and raided a home on the South Side Wednesday night.

Inside, officers discovered 45 pounds of marijuana.

“I saw lights outside the window and then when I went to go peek out the window I saw about, maybe, 15 cops with their weapons out going towards the house,” said neighbor Benjamin Grunauer, who watched the raid unfold.

District Attorney Stephen Zappala says charges are pending against Noah Rosoff-Verbit, the man who lives in that home on South 24th Street.

Investigators accuse Rosoff-Verbit of purchasing the marijuana from a pair of men from Missouri earlier in the day for more than $60,000.

“I didn’t know anyone was really using that house. I moved here maybe three weeks ago, I saw the windows boarded up, I didn’t think anyone lived there,” Grunauer said.

Officers were already in the area in connection to another drug investigation when they said they saw two men, now identified as Andre Tucker and Jaylin Jackson, from St. Louis, sitting in a car with Michigan license plates for about an hour early Wednesday evening.

Then, according to police, the pair went into Rosoff-Verbit’s home holding two large plastic trash bags and returned four to five minutes later with a black duffle bag.

Suspecting a drug deal, officers followed the pair and pulled them over a short time later.

According to the police report, they searched the car and found more than $60,000 in cash in the duffle bag.

Officers arrested Jackson and Tucker before searching the house and confiscating the 45 pounds of marijuana.

“45 pounds and 60 grand in cash is not your average college drug dealer, it sounds like, so it seems like it was a pretty sizable operation. Who knows how many people are involved or how many people have gotten hurt along the way? It’s definitely food that somebody like that is out of here,” said neighbor Stephen Chen.

Jackson and Tucker were arraigned Thursday and denied bail.

They’re due back in court on June 5.

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