EDWARDSVILLE — Investigators have filed an arrest warrant against a suspected drug dealer who they say outed himself by accidentally messaging a Luzerne County prosecutor for a drug swap.

Police say John J. Raimondo had marijuana he wanted to trade for heroin, so he sent a text message — using drug dealing lingo — to a number he thought belonged to a fellow drug dealer.

But police say he sent the text to the wrong number and the message went to the phone of Assistant District Attorney Jill Matthews, who specializes in drug prosecutions.

She played along.

"She got a text that was an obvious text for a drug deal. She contacted Kingston police and set up the deal," Luzerne County First Assistant District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said. "The person thought it was an actual client, but it turns out it's not only an assistant district attorney, but one in the drug unit."

Raimondo, 29, proceeded to arrange the drug swap for later that day in the parking lot of the Gateway Shopping Center in Edwardsville, arrest papers say.

Kingston police were waiting for him when he arrived and took him into custody, according to the criminal complaint.

Raimondo, a Hemstead, New York, native now living in Plymouth, was arraigned on the charges in late February and released on $10,000 unsecured bail. Authorities have now filed a warrant for his arrest after he failed to show up in court for a recent preliminary hearing.

Sanguedolce said he's never heard of such an instance where a prosecutor was literally handed the case from a defendant. The chance a drug prosecutor would get a random, mistaken text from a suspected drug dealer have to be huge, he said.

"The odds are probably not good if you think about the number of ADAs versus the population of the universe or at least the population of the area code," Sanguedolce said. "Usually, it's a civilian who says, ‘You got the wrong number buddy.'"

Similar cases, in which a person got an errant text message, have led to successful prosecutions that have held up in court despite expectation of privacy challenges by the defense, Sanguedolce said.

"Once you send a text message, I could show it to anyone in the world," Sanguedolce said. "You no longer have an expectation of privacy once it leaves your phone."

bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2055, @cvbobkal