Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman announced that an alleged Paterson drug dealer was arrested today on a first-degree charge of strict liability for drug-induced death for allegedly selling the heroin laced with fentanyl that killed a man in Warwick, N.Y., in October.
Shawn Flemmings, 33, of Paterson, was arrested without incident today on a warrant by members of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, who stopped him in a car in Paterson.
He is being held in the Passaic County Jail with bail set at $100,000 full cash. The first-degree charge carries a sentence of 10 to 20 years in state prison.
Flemmings was charged with the death of Stephen Ference, 27, of Warwick, N.Y., who was found dead inside his home on Oct. 17 as a result of an overdose.
Warwick police officers initiated the investigation on the evening of Oct. 17 when they responded to Ference’s home on an emergency call after he was found unresponsive. Ference was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency medical personnel. Officers found syringes and empty glassine envelopes on the bed next to the body and on the floor. In total, police seized 23 single-dose glassine envelopes of heroin and four empty ones, all stamped “Ball Room” in black ink. The Orange County (N.Y.) Medical Examiner determined that Ference had opiates in his system and died of acute fentanyl intoxication.
Warwick officers seized Ference’s iPhone, which revealed potential communications with his heroin supplier in Paterson, who was identified with the street name “S.” The phone was turned over to the New York Attorney General’s Office for further investigation. Examination of the phone’s call log, text messages and other data revealed that Ference traveled on Oct. 16 to a location on Vreeland Avenue in Paterson, where he obtained heroin.
The New York Attorney General’s Office enlisted the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office in the investigation, and detectives of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau began working with detectives of the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office to identify the drug dealer who sold heroin to Ference.
Sheriff’s detectives already were familiar with Flemmings as an alleged drug dealer called “S” who was dealing in the block where Ference obtained heroin. The Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, in fact, arrested Flemmings on Oct. 27 on drug charges, including a charge that on Oct. 26, while under surveillance, he distributed a “brick” of roughly 50 glassine envelopes of heroin stamped with “Ball Room” on the same block where Ference obtained the heroin immediately prior to his death. Through further investigation, the Division of Criminal Justice, the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Warwick Police obtained extensive additional evidence that Flemmings allegedly is the dealer who supplied the heroin laced with fentanyl that killed Ference.
In addition to the first-degree charge of strict liability for drug-induced death, Flemmings is charged with distribution of heroin.