Rhaheem Friend has been charged with manslaughter in the death of passenger Nicholas Foss, 38, in the August crash on South Solon Road. Court papers state the crash happened hours before it was reported. Photo courtesy of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office

The driver in an August 2024 fatal crash in Solon, now charged with manslaughter, was on his way with a friend to a home that had been busted twice last year for suspected drug trafficking.

Instead of calling 911 for help, Rhaheem Friend called a friend — the owner of the busted residence — kicking off an hourslong search by several people in the middle of the night for the crash site, while his passenger sat injured, then dead, in the front seat.

Those are among the new details outlined in a detective’s affidavit filed in court last week requesting an arrest warrant for Friend, 34, on charges stemming from the Aug. 7, 2024, crash on South Solon Road near Merrill Lane.

Friend, listed as a transient from Skowhegan, was charged Thursday with one Class A count of manslaughter, one Class B count of causing death while license suspended or revoked and one Class B count of aggravated criminal operating under the influence according to court records.

Each count lists the victim as his passenger, Nicholas Foss, a Madison man who was 38 years old at the time of the crash.

The Somerset County Sheriff’s Office, which investigated the crash for several months, on Thursday arrested Friend, who was being held at the Somerset County Jail in Madison on unrelated charges.

Friend’s bail was initially set at $50,000. A judge lowered the bail to $25,000 at Friend’s initial court appearance in Skowhegan on Friday and attorneys Stephen Smith and Connor Herrold of the Augusta law firm Steve Smith Trial Lawyers were appointed to represent Friend.

Herrold, reached via email Monday, declined to comment on the case.

Friend was being held as of Monday at the county jail, with various bail amounts set for the other sets of charges.

As the three counts stemming from the crash are felony-level offenses, prosecutors must bring the case to a grand jury before Friend is asked to enter any plea.

The 50-page affidavit supporting Friend’s arrest, written by Detective Michael Lyman of the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office and reviewed by First Assistant District Attorney Tim Snyder, details a monthslong investigation into what happened before and after the crash. It also clarifies the link between the crash and the two drug search warrants executed and arrests made at 1111 South Solon Road last year.

Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster had hinted at the connection previously but declined to offer any details at the time.

THE SCENE OF THE CRASH

In August 2024, when Somerset County sheriff’s deputies responded to the crash after it was reported around 7:10 a.m., they found Foss dead and Friend seriously injured, the affidavit says.

At the time, records indicated Friend had no Maine driver’s license and his driving status was revoked due to being a habitual offender.

A Maine State Police reconstruction determined Friend’s vehicle was traveling east at more than 75 mph in the seconds before it lost control at a corner and crashed into a tree. An autopsy of Foss at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Augusta ruled that he died from blunt force injuries from the crash.

Deputies found a small amount of fentanyl inside the car, and they found cocaine in Foss’ pocket. Both Friend and Foss were believed to have cocaine in their systems at the time of the crash, Lyman wrote.

Lyman, though, noted at one point he did not believe there was probable cause to charge Friend with operating under the influence — one the of the charges ultimately brought against him — as it was likely he consumed drugs after the crash.

Responding deputies found three other people at the scene when they arrived.

One was Cory Miller, who owns the residence about 2 miles away that has been busted twice for suspected drug trafficking. Miller said Friend had contacted him about five hours earlier asking for help.

Another was Michaela Higgins, who told the deputies it was her vehicle, a Toyota Camry, that crashed. She had also been searching for the crash with another man, who ultimately called 911 from the scene.

Miller told deputies Friend had tried to send him his location around 2:20 a.m., but their communication stopped until around 6:45 a.m. Meanwhile, Miller contacted others about the crash, but nobody reported it to emergency responders.

The Sept. 11, 2024, search warrant executed at Miller’s property, during which he was arrested on drug trafficking charges, produced cell phone records that corroborated Miller’s account of communicating with Friend and others after the crash, the affidavit says. Miller also answered investigators’ questions about the night of the crash during the second search of his property on Nov. 7, 2024.

InDecember Lyman interviewed Miller at the Somerset County Jail where he was in custody, and Miller gave a more detailed account of the night of the crash, according to the affidavit. Friend was at Miller’s residence on South Solon Road, where he was not supposed to be because another drug dealer did not want him there, Miller said.

Around midnight, Miller said, Friend left to go to Madison in Higgins’ car to sell Foss drugs. The two did not come to the residence, he said, and Friend called him later that night.

“He described that Friend told him he had ‘been in a bad accident,’ and that Foss was with him,” the affidavit says. “He advised that Friend never told him that (Foss) was injured or dead, and that Friend stated his own leg was injured.”

Miller admitted to removing drugs from the crashed vehicle before first responders arrived. He also admitted to removing cell phones from the vehicle, which he later destroyed.

“The removal of these items were to prevent the discovery of illicit drug dealing involving Miller, Friend, and a number of out-of-state suppliers,” Lyman wrote in the affidavit.

Higgins, who Lyman wrote was known to be involved with illicit drug activities, offered an account in interviews with Lyman that largely tracked what Miller said about where Friend was driving with Foss that night.

While searching for the crash, Higgins told Lyman “she was completely unaware that there was any serious injury and stated that if she had known, she would have called immediately.”

A CONFLICTING STORY

Friend’s version described in the affidavit differs from what others told investigators.

Friend had picked up Foss, a friend he had made previously at the Somerset County Jail, in Madison earlier that night, he told Lyman in December while in custody on other charges.

He said he and Foss were at Miller’s residence using cocaine.

Friend said shortly after the two drove away from the residence, a drug dealer named “Drizzy” drove up beside his vehicle on South Solon Road but was not able to confirm if that is what caused the crash, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit identifies the person with the nickname “Drizz” or “Drizzy” as Derek Sicard, who was arrested in the first drug bust at Miller’s residence, in September.

Friend told Lyman he had never met “Drizz,” but had heard from Miller that Sicard wanted to kill him, the affidavit says. Friend said he did not remember anything further about what happened until after the crash.

After the crash, he said, Foss was moving around slightly and making noise for approximately an hour, although he did not call 911.

“Friend advised that he should have called 911, and expressed that he did not as he knew he had active warrants,” the affidavit says.

Lyman said other evidence supported Higgins’ and Miller’s accounts of the night, and contradicted Friend’s.

“The timelines provided by Higgins and Miller are corroborated and consistent with the text and call messages obtained through Rhaheem Friend’s Verizon phone records,” Lyman wrote. “The crash scene and analysis showed that Friend was traveling back towards Miller’s residence, as opposed to away as he had suggested, when the crash occurred. Both Higgins and Miller described that Foss was not present at Miller’s residence prior to the crash, and has never been to that residence before.

“These statements are inconsistent with Rhaheem Friend’s version of events that night.”