FAIRFIELD — When a 23-year-old man woke up in the predawn hours Tuesday, he found police searching his home, looking for drugs.

They found some, according to Fairfield police Chief Tom Gould.

The man, Nathan Allen Spaulding, of Crosby Street, was charged with four drug-related offenses after the officers, from Somerset County Sheriff’s Office and the Fairfield Police Department, found eight grams of cocaine in the residence, Gould said.

Gould said he couldn’t reveal many details about the ongoing case, but he did reveal that police were operating under a search warrant that capped off a six-month joint investigation between the two departments.

In addition to the cocaine, which has a street value of approximately $600, officers found marijuana-related drug paraphernalia, according to Gould.

Spaulding, who graduated Lawrence High School in 2009, lives in the single-family home with relatives, including parents and siblings, Gould said.

The 10 officers who participated in the arrest entered the home relatively easily, Gould said, and encountered no resistance from the occupants, who were all still sleeping when the officers arrived.

Spaulding was charged with unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs, a class B crime; unlawful furnishing of scheduled drug, a class C crime; sale and use of drug paraphernalia, a class E crime; and unlawful possession of scheduled drug, a class D crime.

The maximum total penalty for the four crimes is more than 16 years in prison and fines of up to $28,000, according to the Maine attorney general’s office.

Spaulding was booked in Fairfield at $5,000 cash bail and sent to the Somerset County Jail in East Madison, where he remained on Wednesday afternoon.

At the Fairfield Police Department, the investigation was handled by Capt. Kingston Paul.

There were 230 arrests for sale or manufacturing of cocaine or similar drugs in Maine in 2012, the most recent year on record with the Maine Department of Public Safety. That same year, there were 464 arrests for possession of cocaine.

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling — 861-9287 mhhetling@centralmaine.com Twitter: @hh_matt