Pubdate: Thu, 02 Mar 2006
Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)
Copyright: 2006 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.madison.com/wsj/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/506
Author: Ed Treleven
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

FRIENDS TO SERVE TIME FOR ROLES IN DEATH

Three Were Sentenced To Jail Or Prison After A Friend Died After 
Overdosing On Heroin.

Three friends of Sarah Stellner, who died last year after a heroin 
overdose at her Langdon Street apartment, will spend time behind bars 
for their roles in getting the heroin to Stellner.

The family of the 20-year-old Soldiers Grove native watched quietly 
as Morgan Fenick, 18, of Chicago; Samuel Katz, 27, of Madison; and 
Ryan Daley, 24, of Madison; were sentenced to time in jail or prison 
for their roles in procuring and injecting the heroin that killed 
Stellner on April 26.

The source of the drugs, Lavinia Mull, 26, of Madison, who later 
bragged that her heroin was so potent it killed, will be sentenced Tuesday.

Circuit Judge Diane Nicks gave the longest sentence to Daley, who had 
pleaded no contest to first-degree reckless homicide for buying the 
fatal heroin from Mull. Nicks sentenced him to two years in prison, 
followed by five years of extended supervision. Fenick and Katz were 
each sentenced to probation with jail terms as a condition of probation.

Reading from a pre-sentence report, Nicks recounted Daley's 
"terrible, terrible" history of substance abuse, which over time has 
included alcohol and marijuana and progressed to the use of 
mushrooms, inhaled rubber cement, cocaine, methadone, LSD and 
OxyContin. She noted that Daley, who was once accepted at UW-Madison, 
sold marijuana in order to support his own drug habit.

After injecting himself with heroin from the same batch that killed 
Stellner, Daley passed out after trying to warn Katz not to let 
Fenick and Stellner use it because it was too potent.

The warning was not heeded by Katz, who used heroin for the first 
time that night, or by Fenick before she injected Stellner.

Nicks sentenced Fenick, who had pleaded no contest to first-degree 
reckless homicide, to seven years of probation with one year in the 
Dane County Jail.

"I loved Sarah and I'm in pain and mourning as well," said Fenick, 
who entered drug treatment after Stellner's death. "I'm sorry that 
such an awful situation had to happen for me to get my life together. 
I ask only that I be forgiven."

But Stellner's family will not forgive easily. They did not speak in 
court Wednesday, but in a victim impact statement filed with the 
court, the family wrote that Fenick abandoned Stellner and left her to die.

"Morgan, with friends like you, Sarah didn't need any enemies," the 
Stellner family wrote in its statement. "We will never forgive you 
for what you have done to this family. Sarah might have been saved 
that night if someone had cared enough to check on her."

Katz, who had pleaded guilty to delivery of heroin, was sentenced to 
five years of probation with six months in jail as a condition of probation.

"I cannot imagine the pain you've had to endure," Katz told the 
Stellner family. "I'd like to offer my deepest apologies for my role 
in bringing this grief upon you."

Katz also said he has a "large moral debt to repay," which he said he 
hopes to do by remaining clean and sober.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman