DEADLY DOSE
CHESTER MAN CHARGED WITH DELIVERING FENTANYL IN UPPER DARBY FATAL OVERDOSE
PHILADELPHIA » The overdose death last year of a former longtime Folcroft man in Upper Darby has resulted in federal charges against a Chester man accused of providing fentanyl to the victim.
Robert Atkins, 28, was charged with distribution of fentanyl resulting in death, as well as five counts of distributing fentanyl, and one count of distributing fentanyl within 1,000 feet of a school, U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappen and Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland announced recently in a joint release.
Online court documents describe Atkins as a convicted felon “who is an extreme danger” to the community. Authorities provided details of how a task force of the FBI and Delaware County police officers made five controlled purchases of fentanyl from Atkins in and around Chester following the victim’s death, according to the federal motion for pretrial detention document filed on April 10.
While federal court documents identified the victim only by the initials S.F., Stephen Paul Fries said his late son, 26-year-old Stephen Joseph Fries, grew up in Folcroft and most recently was living with a girlfriend in Upper Darby when he died on Sept. 7, 2017, of a fatal overdose at her residence.
Citing the opioid abuse crisis gripping the country, Lappen said individuals who continue to distribute the deadly substances exacerbate the public health issue.
“The impact on our community is immeasurable and tragic. Our office will continue to work with our federal and local partners through the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s Opioid Law Enforcement Task Force to investigate and prosecute those individuals whose unscrupulous and illegal conduct contributes to this deadly epidemic,” Lappen stated.
“The defendant had no regard for the people to whom he peddled his poison, and continued to distribute this deadly venom on our streets even after causing the death of one of our Delaware County residents,” stated Copeland.
According to federal documents, an uncapped needle and two empty blue wax papers were found within close proximity of the victim’s body. An autopsy and toxicology report by Assistant Delaware County Medical Examiner Dr. Gary L. Collins showed an “elevated level” of fentanyl in the deceased’s blood and concluded the cause of death as fentanyl intoxication.
“It was pure fentanyl,” Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood recalled this week. “Atkins was selling fentanyl, and these people are thinking it was heroin.
“He allegedly buys the fatal dose in Folcroft and brings it back to his house on Bishop Avenue, shoots up, and dies.”
According to court documents, the victim and his live-in girlfriend had argued on Sept. 8, 2017, “due to her suspicions” that he had returned to abusing drugs. When he left the house later that day, she used a phone app to trace him, discovering he was somewhere in Chester.
Documents describe the victim as sending his girlfriend a photograph of a person holding several blue baggies, rubber banded together. She believed her boyfriend was holding heroin. When authorities later retrieved that photo from the woman’s phone, it was date/time stamped as being taken on Sept. 8, 2017, at 10:23 p.m.
When the victim returned home, he told his girlfriend he purchased four bags of what he believed to be heroin while in Chester. When the girlfriend found him injecting at least one bag he had purchased, she took a short video of his reaction to the drug to show him later.
“The two argued about his heroin relapse and S.F. became visibly upset,” a court document states. “She then put S.F. to bed so that he could sleep off the heroin.”
The next day, the girlfriend left the house and called her boyfriend. She returned home and found him on the floor at the rear of the house. She attempted to revive him but was unsuccessful.
During the month of October 2017, law enforcement utilized a confidential informant to make a series of controlled purchases of fentanyl from Atkins, documents state.
Citing Drug Enforcement Administration experts, court documents cite fentanyl as 30 times more potent than heroin and ingesting as little as 0.1 milligrams — the size of a pinhead or a few specks of table salt — of pure fentanyl can lead to death. By comparison, a typical dose of heroin is 5 milligrams.
“A heroin user unknowingly ingesting fentanyl or a heroin/fentanyl mixture may easily overdose due to the increased potency of fentanyl or the mixture of heroin and fentanyl. Drug incidents and overdoses related to fentanyl have been occurring at an alarming rate, and fentanyl has been linked to recent deaths in this region and throughout the United States,” federal documents state. According to documents,
“The impact on our community is immeasurable and tragic. Our office will continue to work with our federal and local partners through the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s Opioid Law Enforcement Task Force to investigate and prosecute those individuals whose unscrupulous and illegal conduct contributes to this deadly epidemic.”
— U.S. Attorney Louis D. Lappenn
“The defendant was also aware of the danger that his product could pose, acknowledging in his recorded statement made during a sale of fentanyl, that his product is dangerous knowing and/or believing that substance was ‘exactly what (he) gave (S.F.)’ after having acknowledged on a prior occasion that Atkins (knew) S.F. was dead.”
The victim’s father said he “just had a gut feeling” when a friend of his son’s showed up at his home in Folcroft that fateful Saturday last September.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Fries, 54, recalled asking.
The elder Fries said his son, whom he raised as a single dad since Stephen was the age of 3, had battled a drug addiction for a few years. He recalled taking his son twice to Eagleville Hospital for help.
“He would do good for a while and then he’d relapse,” the father said.
Fries said his son, who did a stint in jail, had been clean for about seven months.
Though his incarceration was hard, Fries said, “I didn’t worry about him when he was in jail.”
Fries said Atkins’ arrest, and current incarceration, has brought him some comfort in knowing that he won’t be able to harm another person.
“It brought tears to my eyes,” he said.
To the person who first shared the news of Atkins arrest, Fries said he simply said, “Thank you.”
While the elder Fries said he does not know Atkins, he knows at least one woman who does. She thought of Atkins as “trouble,” Fries said.
“She called him several times and told him to stop selling (drugs) to Stephen,” Fries said.
Fries’ son was one of more than 219 individuals whose death in Delaware County in 2017 was opioid related.
According to statistics provided by the Delaware County Medical Examiner’s office, there were at least 247 drug-related deaths in the county in 2017 and of those, 219 involved opioids. In 2016, of the total 227 drug-related deaths, 201 were opioid related.
Fries, who is employed as a truck driver, described his son as a hard worker. Up until about six years ago, father and son worked together as painters. More recently, the younger Fries worked as a carpenter and a roofer.
His son had a talent for working with his hands, Fries said.
Recalling theirs as a close relationship, Fries said he spoke to his son several times a week. He last saw his son two days before his death, when he stopped by the Folcroft house for a visit.
Fries said it’s his son’s laugh, and his silliness, that he misses the most.
In messages posted on his father’s Facebook page, there are photographs of Stephen at various stages from toddler to teen to young adult.
“Stevie had such an amazing heart, and a personality that brightened any room,” read a post from a friend.
In addition to his dad, Fries is survived by other relatives including his mother, Robin Truman Fries of Florida, a half-sister, his paternal grandmother, aunts, an uncle and cousins.
The case was investigated by the DEA, the Delaware County Drug Task Force, and the Folcroft and Upper Darby police departments. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Faith Moore Taylor, and from the Delaware County District Attorney’s office, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharon H. McKenna.
According to online court documents, Atkins is being represented by attorney William Spade. A message left for Spade late Tuesday afternoon was not immediately returned.