Dealer gets 40-80 months in fatal fentanyl overdose | News

MEDIA COURTHOUSE — A Colwyn man already serving state time for heroin distribution was given a concurrent sentence of 40 to 80 months Monday for delivering a fatal dose of fentanyl to a 28-year-old Chester man in April 2017.

Raheem Harper, 29, of the 400 block of 4th Street, pleaded guilty before Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge James Bradley to one count of drug delivery resulting in death, a felony of the first degree, as well as four counts each of delivery of heroin, an ungraded felony, and criminal use of a communication facility, a felony of the third degree.

“Raheem Harper preyed upon the victim’s weakness and desperation, taking advantage of his struggle with addiction,” said Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland in a release. “Harper repeatedly delivered drugs for profit, in exchange for another man’s life. For families affected by opioid addiction, holding drug dealers like the defendant accountable is imperative. By exposing their actions and making them pay for their injustice, we can take steps towards prevention, even if it will not bring a loved one back.”

Investigators determined Harper sold Andy Bruhn the fatal bag of heroin cut with fentanyl on April 19, 2017, from text messages contained on the victim’s phone. Harper had also met with the victim on three prior occasions on April 6, April 9 and April 11.

Bruhn was discovered at a residence on the 1500 block of Edgemont Avenue April 21. He was pronounced dead at the scene with a hypodermic needle and the remains of a bag of heroin stamped “Hurricane” on the floor beside him. Five additional bags, all stamped in the same manner, were found in the victim’s pocket.

Delaware County Medical Examiner Dr. Frederic N. Hellman determined the cause of death was multiple drug intoxication, specifically for heroin and fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that can be fatal in extremely small doses.

Harper was also arrested April 21, 2017, in possession of 18 other baggies stamped “Hurricane” during a routine traffic stop in Tinicum. He was released the same day on 10 percent of $100,000 bail, but was again arrested in Clifton Heights May 6 with more than 1,500 bags of heroin weighing 62.13 grams, as well as methamphetamine and cocaine.

Coplend said at a press conference last year that the 1,500 bags in the second arrest did not bear the “Hurricane” stamp and did not contain fentanyl.

Online court records indicate Harper entered an open guilty plea to possession with intent to deliver before Delaware County District Judge John Capuzzi on Nov. 17 and was sentenced to five and a half to 12 years in state prison with seven years of probation.

Copeland previously said Bruhn had just come out of rehab months before his death. She said he paid for the first delivery by giving Harper a PlayStation 4 and paid amounts of cash starting around $40 in subsequent deliveries.

Bruhn’s mother, Stacey Bruhn-Robinson, said he had sustained a back injury at work and began taking pills for the pain, which led him into heroin. She said the family had fought tooth and nail against the addiction together. Bruhn’s grandmother, Charlene McHugh, said he had promised to get clean and made every effort to do so.

“It was a promise he couldn’t keep,” she said. “Addiction got him. Addiction took him over. It too his heart, took his soul, took his brain.”

McHugh described her grandson as an avid sports fan who always wanted to be an engineer. She said he was a loving older brother who always tried to guide his siblings in life, but he was preyed upon by dealers who cut his own life short.

“My son was kind, and he was hard working, and he was funny and special and he was the guy who came into the room and you thought, ‘Wow, what a great guy,’” Bruhn-Robinson tearfully told the court. “And he fell off the wagon for a brief bit and a drug dealer sold him a bag of fentanyl and took my baby away before he could get better.”

Bruhn-Robinson said the death has had devastating impacts to her family. She said she went from a mother of five happy, well-adjusted children to a mother of four who can’t go a single day without crying 10 times.

She noted hundreds of people attended her son’s funeral, as a testament to the kind of man he was, and the family has started the Addiction Never Defines You Forever foundation – or “ANDY Forever” – in her son’s memory, to help out people in recovery.

Harper’s mother also testified that her son was “a good kid” who came from a middle-class household of law-abiding and working parents. She said he was influenced by someone else to do something he should not have been doing and made a bad choice.

Defense attorney Shaka Mzee Johnson said there was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case who had met Bruhn in rehab and put him in touch with Harper.

“I can’t say why he did what he did, but he did it and the influence is hard out here when you’re a young kid,” said Harper’s mother. “I’m not sure what happened to Raheem, why he lost his way, but at some point he did. I know he can be rehabilitated because he is a good kid, he just made a bad choice.”

“To be honest, I really don’t know where I went wrong,” Harper said Monday. “I take full responsibility. It was a selfish decision. …I just made the wrong decision. I didn’t think about it … about doing this harm to Mr. Bruhn’s family, to my family. I was just thinking about myself. I’m sorry for that.”

“Maybe God will forgive you at some point,” said McHugh. “I never will because you took away the best thing in my life and it is devastating.”

It was a sentiment shared by Bruhn’s mother.

Deputy District Attorney Sharon McKenna noted Harper had entered an open guilty plea so there were no negotiations about a sentence and asked only for something in the guideline range. Johnson requested that the sentence run concurrent to the prior 2017 sentence.

Judge Bradley, a grandfather of seven himself, said he wished his gavel was a magic wand capable of reversing the tragedy before him.

“Judges throughout the country are seeing things like this every day and I just wish there was some way to put a stop to it right away, because the damage that it causes is just indescribable,” he said. “The brutal truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as an FDA-approved drug dealer. Drugs are dangerous. They kill people. And there are people out there who are going to facilitate that need.”

In addition to prison time, Harper was ordered serve eight years of consecutive state probation, provide a DNA sample to state police and pay a $400 assessment. He is not eligible for early release.