Basking Ridge Man Faces Drug Charges

A Basking Ridge man was caught Tuesday with approximately $1,000 worth of narcotics in a Bedminster restaurant parking lot, the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office said.

Jorge Luis Tello-Iturbe, 56, of Crown Court Drive, was charged with three counts of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute, two counts of second-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute within 500 feet of a public park and one count of fourth-degree obstruction of justice.

According to a joint statement released Wednesday by Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano, Somerset County Prosecutor's Office Chief of Detectives Stuart Buckman and Bedminster Police Chief W. Patrick Ussery, detectives received a tip that Tello-Iturbe would be driving a Dodge Ram pickup truck near a restaurant on Burnt Mills Road in Bedminster Tuesday afternoon.

Detectives from the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force and the Bedminster Police Department set up a surveillance of the area, the prosecutor's office said.

Detectives approached Tello-Iturbe when he parked his pickup truck in the restaurant's parking lot shortly after 1 p.m., the prosecutor's office said. The restaurant was located within 500 feet of Peapack Schoolhouse Park, the prosecutor's office said.

Tello-Iturbe voluntarily gave detectives permission to search his vehicle, the prosecutor's office said. Detectives found three bags of cocaine, four Oxycodone pills, 30 prescription pills (sertraline hydrochloride) and a digital scale, the prosecutor's office said.

Detectives also seized $361 from Tello-Iturbe's possession, the prosecutor's office said. The cocaine has an estimated value of $600 and the Oxycodone and other prescription pills have an estimated street value of $400, the prosecutor's office said.

Tello-Iturbe was lodged in the Somerset County Jail on $100,000 cash bail.