Ronald Brauning, 40, of Abington, has been arrested on the criminal homicide charge of drug delivery resulting in death, in the overdose death of Ronald Solomon of Hatfield Aug. 14, 2017. The arrest was announced earlier today by the Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele, Hatfield Township Police Chief William J. Tierney, Lower Merion Township Police Superintendent Michael J. McGrath and Montgomery Township Police Chief J. Scott Bendig
Hatfield Township Police on August 14, 2017 at 2:25 a.m., responded to a residence on Koffel Road to find an unresponsive male lying on the garage floor. Ronald Solomon was later pronounced dead at Abington Lansdale Hospital. The ongoing investigation by the Montgomery County Detective Bureau’s Opioid Task Force Detectives revealed that on the evening of August 13, the victim met with Ronald Brauning at a friend’s house, where Brauning sold him illegal drugs including fentanyl and methamphetamine. Solomon returned home after the drug purchase, he then ingested the drugs and died. There was bag of drugs found underneath Mr. Solomon’s cell phone case. Testing by National Medical Services found that the bag contained methamphetamine.
Within Forty-five minutes following the Solomon’s overdose death, Brauning was arrested by Montgomery Township Police in an unrelated incident for possession with intent to deliver and other charges related to drugs. When Brauning was arrested he had in his possession, six zipper-sealed bags of methamphetamine, and four blue wax paper baggies filled with drugs. Three of those bags contained heroin and the fourth contained a heroin-fentanyl mix.
An Autopsy indicated that the victim died of a combined drug intoxication of methamphetamine and fentanyl. Brauning could get up to 40 years for drug delivery resulting in death. He has been in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility since this arrest. Bail was set at $750,000 which Brauning was unable to post.
“Ronald Solomon died in his garage from being poisoned by drugs—fentanyl and methamphetamine—sold to him by a dealer. This dealer knew how deadly these drugs were and sold it to the victim anyway, just to make money,” said District Attorney Steele. “Dealers peddling their poison should think twice about doing so in Montgomery County. If someone dies and we can prove who provided the drugs to them, the dealer is on the hook for homicide and looking at a sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison. “This is our first arrest for this charge in 2018, and mark my words, more arrests will be coming. As long as drug dealers continue to peddle their deadly poison in Montgomery County, our law enforcement personnel will seek to hold them accountable for these deaths,” said Steele.