Cops: Undercover cocaine buy outside Salem strip club results in worker's arrest

An undercover cocaine purchase outside the Beehive Showbar in Salem Township resulted in the arrest of the strip club’s front desk clerk, police said.

Jeremiah J. Edwards, 50, of Salem, is charged with multiple counts of possession with intent to deliver and possession of cocaine, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

Police received a tip that Edwards was selling contraband from behind the counter of the business along Route 22, according to Penn Township Det. Brad Buchsbaum, who is a member of the county’s drug task force.

Buchsbaum reported that he entered the club earlier this month with a confidential informant, whom he provided with marked currency. Following a conversation, Edwards took Buchsbaum and the informant to his pickup truck parked outside, where the transaction for four grams of cocaine was completed, Buchsbaum wrote in court documents.

On Jan. 16, when Buchsbaum and an agent from the state Attorney General’s office went to the strip club to question Edwards about the case, they were told he went to a fast-food restaurant in the Delmont area.

When Buchsbaum and the agent went to speak with Edwards in his orange Camaro, officers said they seized a small plastic bag of suspected methamphetamine they found in the center console.

“(Edwards) said that it wasn’t his meth,” Buchsbaum wrote.

Buchsbaum said officers also confiscated a glass smoking pipe and a small amount of suspected crack cocaine inside a cigarette pack in the car.

A worker at the Beehive Friday said Edwards is no longer employed there.

Edwards was arraigned Thursday before senior District Judge Richard S. Wilt of Huntingdon County, who was filling in for Washington Township District Judge Jason Buczak, and was ordered held in the county prison after failing to post $17,500 bond.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled Feb. 10.