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‘A big one’ for Misericordia

Child cancer rates average in Luzerne County, but high in neighboring Wyoming

<p>Local registered nurse Mary Barberio Conrad showed Luzerne County Council members a photograph of her late 24-year-old son this week and said charges should have been filed against the drug dealer she believes killed him.</p><p>Conrad said during the council work session that she found her son, Dean Gray, dead in the living room of her Wilkes-Barre home Aug. 10 and later learned he had purchased what he thought was an opioid Percocet pill from &#8220;someone he thought he could trust.&#8221;</p><p>Preliminary toxicology testing detected the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl was in Gray&#8217;s system, she said.</p><p>The mother said police obtained text messages related to the pill purchase and a video showing her son meeting the dealer and getting into his car. After demanding a status report several days later, she said a city detective informed her police did not have enough evidence to prosecute and that there would be no autopsy.</p><p>Conrad said the county district attorney&#8217;s office should be pursuing prosecution on a charge of drug delivery resulting in death.</p><p>&#8220;I believe that my son was murdered. I know he made a poor choice getting this pill, but I believe it was murder,&#8221; Conrad told council.</p><p>She was backed by Swoyersville resident Greg Griffin, who formed the Luzerne County Citizens Opioid Committee to target the drug epidemic.</p><p>Griffin told council the district attorney&#8217;s office should be &#8220;more aggressive&#8221; filing delivery-resulting-in-death charges against dealers. He asked council to meet with District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis to determine &#8220;what she needs to go after these fentanyl dealers hard.&#8221;</p><p><strong>DA response</strong></p><p>Salavantis was not at the meeting but said Wednesday her office is aggressively investigating all such cases.</p><p>Under this type of criminal charge, prosecutors must prove the dealer sold a drug that was the direct cause of a death, she said.</p><p>Often, victims have several drugs in their system, making it difficult to convince a jury the specific one sold by the dealer made someone die, she said. In some cases, nobody knows what the victim was doing during a gap between the time the drug was provided and the death, she said.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to prove the sale of a specific drug is the sole reason an individual died. If we can prove that, we do,&#8221; Salavantis said.</p><p>The district attorney&#8217;s office implemented protocols for police to follow in overdose investigations to make sure all potential cases against dealers are fully researched &#8212; procedures that have been replicated in other counties, she said. An assistant district attorney and drug task force officer have been assigned to work with police to review these cases, she said.</p><p>The office also works closely with the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office in case a defendant&#8217;s past criminal record warrants federal prosecution, although the county still handles the investigation portion if cases are prosecuted at the federal level, she said.</p><p>Salavantis did not have an immediate tally on the number of cases the county prosecuted against dealers but said several were filed, with at least three resulting in guilty pleas. The office also has two pending cases that will be filed soon, she said.</p><p>&#8220;This isn&#8217;t something we take lightly. These are very serious cases that affect our communities, so we proceed when we can,&#8221; Salavantis said.</p><p>Autopsies must be performed in the cases against dealers, and Salavantis said the county must be prudent by ordering autopsies only for those cases likely to lead to charges.</p><p>Each autopsy costs the county around $2,500, the county said.</p><p>In total, the county performed 36 autopsies this year to date, amounting to a cost of around $90,000.</p><p>As of Wednesday, the county had 79 overdose deaths for the year to date, with another eight possible cases pending toxicology results, according to the county coroner&#8217;s office. The expense would be approximately $197,500 if autopsies had been ordered for all 79 cases, the coroner&#8217;s office said.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s why we have the clear protocol in place, to make sure we&#8217;re spending taxpayer money wisely,&#8221; Salavantis said.</p><p>Conrad told council her son made strides battling addiction and suffered from diabetic neuropathy, depression and anxiety. He was a talented musician and made a positive impression on those he met, she said.</p><p>Gray died the day before his 25th birthday, she said.</p><p>&#8220;I want to see some justice here in Luzerne County. I want to believe that we&#8217;re going to get tough on drug dealers and that we&#8217;re going to prosecute with evidence from autopsies so that we don&#8217;t keep losing our children,&#8221; she said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Salavantis </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web1_salavantis_ebmeetingCMYK.jpg</photo0><caption0>Salavantis </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jennifer Learn-Andes</p><p>jandes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Mother of drug overdose victim seeks Luzerne County Council intervention