A suspected small-time drug dealer finds himself in big trouble.

It's so big, it's unprecedented in Butler County.

Detectives in two police departments say 30-year-old Joshua A. Hakeem is responsible for a pair of drug overdose deaths on consecutive days last fall. Authorities believe the victims — Chester Dietrich and John Kolakowski — bought the same batch of fentanyl-laced heroin from the defendant.

That potent batch, investigators believe, caused a wave of overdoses in Butler County, prompting District Attorney Richard Goldinger in October 2015 to issue a public warning to addicts. Most of the overdose victims survived. Dietrich, 26, of Fenelton and Kolakowski, 29, of Butler did not.

Butler police on Wednesday charged Hakeem with selling bags containing the lethal drug mix to Dietrich on Oct. 17, 2015. Hours after buying the dope, Dietrich died of an overdose in a store bathroom at the Pullman Square shopping plaza. Hakeem is charged with drug delivery resulting in death, the equivalent of third-degree murder in Pennsylvania, and drug trafficking.

City police filed their case just two days after Butler Township police charged Hakeem with peddling fentanyl-laced heroin to Kolakowski on Oct. 18. Kolakowski a short time later suffered a fatal overdose in a room at a Route 8 hotel. On Monday, township police charged Hakeem with drug delivery resulting in death, involuntary manslaughter and felony drug possession. He is being held in the Butler County Prison on $200,000 bail.

Goldinger praised the work by police and the county's drug task force in bringing the charges. That effort, he said, reflects his own commitment to use the law — when appropriate — to punish people who supply drugs that lead to someone's death. If we can establish who delivered it and that it caused a death, we will file charges every time,”

Goldinger said Wednesday. “We want to do everything we can to prosecute those who deliver this crap here.” While the DA's office has pursued the relatively new charge before, this is the first time it's been applied to one suspect accused in multiple overdose deaths, authorities acknowledged.

Get a complete report in Thursday's Butler Eagle.