Paprocki sentenced in connection with Groton heroin death case

Timothy Paprocki and Brent Johnston had much in common when they met a few years ago in a drug rehabilitation class, two millennials who grew up in southeastern Connecticut, loved to skateboard and couldn’t shake their addiction to heroin.

They connected immediately, but Paprocki said time went by, and he didn’t see Johnston until April 12, 2016, the day Paprocki supplied the heroin with fentanyl that led to Johnston’s death. They were both due in court that week for drug-related offenses, and that’s what they talked about, Paprocki said.

“We both decided to relapse,” he said.

Paprocki, 33, of Ledyard told the story before U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea sentenced him in Hartford on Wednesday to 30 months in federal prison followed by four years of supervised release for distributing heroin that led to an overdose death. He spoke of the fated friendship for the benefit of Johnston’s mother, Karine Heard, who has tried, unsuccessfully, to meet with Paprocki in prison so that she could better understand the circumstances of her son’s death.

“Brent was a great kid,” Paprocki said.

Heard, of Quaker Hill, already had lost one son, Randy, who was working with the famed Ford Modeling Agency, to a heroin overdose at age 20 in 2008. Brent, 25, had suffered for years with addiction and was on life support just a month before his death from an overdose, his mother said. He was trying to recover, but had been turned away from a methadone clinic on the morning of April 12 because he didn’t have the right paperwork, she said.

When she saw that Lawrence + Memorial Hospital was calling her on April 12, she knew her son was dead.

“I answered the phone, ‘No! No! No!’” she recalled as she addressed the court at Paprocki’s sentence.

When she and her husband arrived at the emergency room, the doctor told her, “I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

They weren’t allowed to touch the body, she said, because it would compromise the police investigation. Two days later, her mother died from a stroke and heart attack, or, as one family member put it, “a broken heart,” she said. Telling her 16-year-old daughter that her other brother was dead was devastating, and she also had to call Johnston’s girlfriend, with whom he had a son, now 5 years old.

According to court documents, Paprocki told Groton Town Police he had bought $200 worth of heroin that day from Rudy Hernandez, picked up Johnston and supplied him with $40 worth, some of which was still in a baggie in Johnston’s pants after he died. Paprocki said that once Johnston became incapacitated, he thought about leaving him on a couch on the side of the road. He moved Johnston to the back seat of his car and drove to a friend’s home before returning to his own. He said he spoke with his girlfriend about calling for help and told her to dispose of the heroin.

“The delay in seeking medical assistance (for Johnston) is difficult to understand, and it cannot be justified,” wrote Paprocki’s attorney, Dan E. LaBelle in a sentencing memorandum.

Even knowing that inexplicable detail, Johnston’s mother told Judge Shea on Wednesday that she was seeking significant treatment for Paprocki rather than incarceration. She said that if the court would allow it, she would hug him.

“I wish you well, Timothy, and hope that one day you can make a positive change and reflect it on others,” she said.

Paprocki’s parents and girlfriend, who gave birth to a son while he was incarcerated, sat on the other side of the courtroom, listening appreciatively.

A bewildering fact in the case was the result of Johnston’s autopsy. The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled that he died of acute ethanol intoxication, with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.314 percent.

“There’s not a doubt that he got drugs and used them and died,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas P. Morabito, who prosecuted the case.

Federal sentencing guidelines called for a period of 24 to 30 months of prison for Paprocki, and Morabito said he was leaving it up to the judge. He said that Paprocki has a significant substance abuse history and he could either kick it, go to jail (again), or die.

Judge Shea stayed within the prison guidelines, imposing the maximum period, but added a year of supervised release to the guideline calculation. He ordered Paprocki to complete inpatient or outpatient drug treatment upon his release as well as cognitive therapy and recommended that he complete a 500-hour drug treatment program while incarcerated. He told Paprocki that nobody could fix him but himself. “This is on you,” he said. Paprocki has unrelated state charges pending, and will not begin serving the federal sentence until the state sentence is complete.