Prosecutors taking new tack in 5 drug deaths
Seminole might pursue manslaughter charges for alleged fentanyl dealers
Jamie Nelson had reason to hope her murder charge would be dismissed.
She’s charged with distributing a fatal dose of fentanyl to Tracy Skornicka. But a judge’s decision to throw out a first-degree murder charge in a similar case last week paved the way for others to argue for their own dismissals.
On Thursday, it was Nelson’s turn. She stood shackled before Circuit Judge Melanie Chase while lawyers argued. Then prosecutor Anna Valentini revealed what her office’s strategy will be in cases where the murder charges are dismissed: The office would charge those defendants with manslaughter by act, a second-degree felony. Seminole County prosecutors won’t let Nelson or the others off the hook.
Nelson’s mouth fell open in shock.
Prosecutors also are appealing Circuit Judge Debra Nelson’s decision to dismiss the murder charge against Christopher Toro. State Attorney Phil Archer’s office sent notices to lawyers and judges in other similar cases, alerting them to the ruling.
As the nation and Florida have grappled with an opioid crisis, prosecutors and law enforcement have pursued ways to get tougher on fentanyl dealers. Last year, Gov. Rick Scott signed a statute adding fenatanyl to the list of drugs for which dealers may be charged with murder and be punished by either life in prison or execution.
About six months before that law took effect, Seminole County prosecutors believed they found a way around it. They argued fentanyl is a synthetic of opium, a drug category that already existed in the law. Five accused dealers were charged with first-degree murder in deaths before Oct. 1.
But two crime analysts in the chemistry section of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement testified in Toro’s case that fentanyl is not a syntethic of opium. Judge Nelson, no relation to defendant Nelson, said therefore the law at the time didn’t allow Toro’s prosecution on a murder charge.
“I just don’t think it’s reasonable for them to try to get creative again,” public defender Jeff Dowdy said Thursday. “I don’t think the manslaughter statute is applicable in these kinds of cases and that’s what we’ll fight.”
In Nelson’s case, she is accused of accepting $50 in exchange for taking Skornicka to the dealer who sold heroin laced with fentanyl, according to a Longwood Police Department arrest report.
Chase, the judge over Nelson’s case, said she would watch footage of the hearing in which Judge Nelson dismissed Toro’s case before issuing her ruling. If dismissed, Jamie Nelson will be allowed to get out of jail on bail. She still faces a charge of sale or distribution of a controlled substance, a second-degree felony. Chase set her bail on that charge at $10,000.