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. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman