Heroin epidemic spurs cops to charge friends, others who provide drugs that kill

A directive issued by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office a year ago urged more vigorous enforcement of the law to stem the state's heroin and opiate 'crisis'

Enforcement of a 1987 law holding drug distributors criminally responsible for overdose deaths used to be a rare occurrence in New Jersey, but not any more.File photo 

It doesn't matter if you're a heroin overdose victim's best friend -- if you provided the drug that caused an overdose death, you can be prosecuted under a once rarely used 1987 law.

As the heroin epidemic rages on across New Jersey, law enforcement authorities are encouraging police and prosecutors to make full use of the "Strict Liability for Drug-Induced Death" law, according to Elie Honig, director of the state Attorney General's Division of Criminal Justice.

"Under the law, the defendant does not have to be a drug kingpin," Honig said in an interview with NJ Advance Media. "You have to look at the whole case."

Honig acknowledged that a drug dealer is still more likely to be prosecuted, but someone who is sharing the drug is by no means immune. The Attorney General's Office, he said, has no statistics on the number of prosecutions by county prosecutors under the strict liability law, but added if there has been an increase, "that would be a good thing."

An online search of mainstream news sources revealed that in the past year, there have been at least 12 arrests under the strict liability law in New Jersey.

The increased enforcement of the law, particularly against people who were sharing the drug with friends, has its detractors, especially among defense attorneys.

Robert Bianchi, who served as Morris County prosecutor between 2007 and 2012 and now represents many drug defendants in his private law practice, called it "draconian" to prosecute in situations where "two consenting adults engaged in self-destructive behavior."

"You're not going to solve addiction this way," Bianchi said. "Years of taking a tough-guy approach have not done that."

In a recent use of the law, Angel Hernandez, 38, of Elmwood Park was arrested on Oct. 20 on two counts of the strict liability statute. He is accused of killing two people by providing heroin in two separate incidents in Clifton. Eric Somesia, 28, of Paterson, died in March, and Daniel Renois, 23, of Clifton died in July after each ingested heroin acquired from Hernandez, according to the Passaic County prosecutor.

Two Sussex County men, Edward Bochinski, 32, and Steven Smith, 29, both of Sussex Borough, face the charge in connection with an unnamed individual who died of a heroin overdose in Wantage on Aug. 20. Smith gave the heroin to Bochinski, who then distributed it to the victim, according to prosecutors.

"The allegation is that the drugs were sold to the victim, not shared," said Sussex First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller. He said his office is not releasing the name of the victim "at the request of the victim's family."

In 2013, Morris County prosecuted a man who was a user himself. Matthew Weisholz, 30, of Lincoln Park, who described himself as a "full-blown heroin addict," pleaded guilty to the strict liability charge on Aug. 9, 2013.

He admitted he gave the drug to a former girlfriend, Erin Idone of Montville, on March 5, 2013. Idone, who had recently been released from a rehabilitation center, died that day of an overdose. Weisholz was sentenced to five years in state prison.

A law enforcement directive issued by Acting Attorney General John Hoffman in October 2014 said the state "is in the midst of a heroin and prescription opiate crisis" and urged a number of steps for police and prosecutors aimed at both deterring drug use and saving lives.

Those included proper implementation of the Overdose Prevention Act of 2013, which provides immunity from a drug possession charge for a person seeking medical assistance for a possible overdose.

But the steps also included "prompt and thorough investigations of possible violations" of the strict liability for drug deaths law, which imposes penalties of up to 20 years in state prison.

For Hernandez, accused of killing two people with his heroin, that means he faces up to 40 years in prison if found guilty.

The directive states that "it is no defense that the drug user contributed to his or her own death by voluntarily ingesting the substance" and says the law applies "to every person along the drug distribution chain, and not just to 'retail' distributors."

"It's one of many options we have," Honig said. "You have to look at all the circumstances."

Under the law, a person who manufactured or distributed a drug may be found guilty if it can be proven that someone died as a result of ingesting the drug.

In this Morris County case, Weisholz told the court it was not his "intention" that Idone would die, adding: "I can't say how sorry I feel toward the family for the pain I caused."

Idone's father, mother and brother all communicated publicly to the court about how devastating her death was for them.

More recently in Bergen County, Jesse Kurzweil, 28, of Closter, was sentenced on Oct. 7 to six years in state prison under the statute, according to court records.

Kurzweil, who pleaded guilty in July to the charge, admitted his role in the death of Doreen Leach, 47, of Emerson, according to a report in The Record. After Leach was found dead in her apartment, an investigation revealed that Kurzweil had sold the heroin to a man who used the heroin with Leach, the newspaper reported.

Statistics released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and the state medical examiner's office revealed that New Jersey's heroin overdose rate reached record levels in 2013 and 2014 and was triple the national rate. Some 741 people died of heroin overdoses in 2013 and 781 in 2014.

The problem, Honig said, is "particularly acute down the Shore," especially in Cape May and Ocean counties,  and "those two counties are on the leading edge" of prosecutions.

"There are lots of tourists, college kids, people looking for recreation" at the Shore, he said.

In Ocean County, which has been prosecuting the crime aggressively for several years, there have been 20 arrests for providing heroin that kills since Joseph Coronato became prosecutor in March 2013, according to statistics compiled by his office.

Coronato's spokesman, Al Della Fave, said that as soon as Cornato took office, "he realized there was an issue" and he targeted dealers providing drugs that kill.

Among those who died in those cases was William Akers, son of Seaside Heights Mayor Bill Akers. Jason Jamiel Brinson, 28, was charged with manslaughter and drug distribution.

Della Fave said that in Ocean County, the prosecutor has been going after dealers and has not been prosecuting people who were just users.

"Our strategy is hard-core dealers are impacting a lot of people," Della Fave said, noting that the key in those getting is a medical examiner's report saying ingestion of drugs was the cause of death.

Honig linked the increase in heroin overdoses to the increased popularity of prescription painkillers such as oxycodone that produce an "intense high" similar to heroin.

"Pills give the same high, but they are are more expensive," he said. "In New Jersey, we have some of the most potent heroin in the country and it's also the most affordable."

Pills, while more expensive, may be safer because they are a regulated prescription drug, whereas with heroin, "you're more likely to get tainted stuff," Honig said.

Bianchi said that when he was prosecutor between 2007 and 2012, families of drug overdose victims sometimes asked for prosecutions under the "strict liability" law. His office investigated, but didn't pursue any prosecutions, Bianchi said.

The heroin epidemic has gotten even worse since he left office, Bianchi said.

Now, he said, "We're living in two worlds" and the state is taking a "frenzied" approach in which "they want to rehabilitate but they also want to be hard on drugs."

Defense attorney Feinstein said that with the heroin problem so widespread, he understands the need for law enforcement to push enforcement of the strict liability law. 

"This is a way of drawing attention to what is now a vast epidemic," Feinstein said. "It leads to deaths. This is something that has to be taken seriously. The law can be used as a deterrent."

Juries are unlikely to be sympathetic to drug dealers accused of killing people with their drugs, Feinstein said. "As a defense attorney, that's going to be a tough case."

But Feinstein said prosecuting those who shared drugs with friends is "going too far."

"Juries are going to have sympathy for people who were sharing," Feinstein said, adding that in those circumstances, everyone was using the drug voluntarily.

"Juries are going to say, 'there but for the grace of God, other people could have died,' " Feinstein said.

Ben Horowitz may be reached at bhorowitz@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @HorowitzBen. Find NJ.com on Facebook.