‘CUTTING-EDGE’ CASE
Manslaughter charge is first in Ulster resulting from fentanyl overdose death
For the first time in Ulster County, an alleged drug dealer has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of a county resident who overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl.
District Attorney David Clegg said at a press conference Wednesday that Jamal J. Thompson, 24, of Butler, N.J., was indicted by an Ulster County grand jury on Aug. 20, and arrested five days later, for the felonies of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and criminal sale of a controlled substance. The charges are the result of the Jan. 10, 2020, death of a 35-year-old town of Rochester man, Clegg said.
Clegg said “the dealing of poisonous drugs, including fentanyl, will not be tolerated” in Ulster County, and he called Thompson’s arrest “a cutting
edge attempt to hold people accountable.”
The district attorney said manslaughter charges are rare in drug-related deaths and that, to his knowledge, the only other places in New York state where such charges have been brought are Broome and Monroe counties, and “maybe New York City.”
As opposed to criminally negligent homicide, Clegg said, a manslaughter charge in a drug case requires prosecutors to “show proof of knowledge that a particular batch” of narcotics was deadly.
Twice before — once in the summer of 2019 and once this past June — suspects have been charged with criminally negligent homicide for drug-related deaths in Ulster County.
If convicted, Thompson faces a prison term of 3½ to 15 years for the manslaughter charge. Criminally negligent homicide carries a term of one to four years.
Thompson was taken into custody at his home on Aug. 25 by U.S. marshals from the N.Y./N.J. Regional Fugitive Task Force, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office and
Ulster County sheriff’s deputies, said Detective Lt. Abram Markiewicz of the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office.
On Monday, Thompson was extradited to Ulster County and arraigned virtually by Ulster County Judge Bryan Rounds. He then was sent to the county jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Prosecutors did not identify the man whose death led to Thompson being charged. The man’s parents attended Wednesday’s press conference but declined to speak with a reporter.
The Ulster County Sheriff’s Office said in a prepared statement that the investigation revealed the man “had been communicating by phone with a person in Paterson, N.J., about the sale of narcotics prior to his death.”
The announcement of Thompson’s arrest came a day after law-enforcement officials announced the largest-ever drug haul in Ulster County’s history — the seizure of more than 10,000 bags of heroin and fentanyl following the arrest of Timothy L. Schleede, 29, of Kingston — and two days after Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan declared a public health emergency due to the recent spike in fentanyl-related deaths in the county.
Schleede is accused of selling heroin and fentanyl at hotels and motels in the town of Ulster.
Ryan, in his Monday declaration, said opioid-related deaths in Ulster County between January and July 2020 were 171% higher than during the same period in 2019. On Tuesday, Ryan said that of the county’s 38 opioid fatalities this year, 34 were definitely linked to fentanyl and the other four probably were, though details were pending.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa called the death that led to Thompson’s arrest “yet another story of someone who passed away from this opioid epidemic facing Ulster County.”