Suffolk DA Ray Tierney: 30 people indicted on drug charges following 3 long-term probes into narcotics, gang activity

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney on Wednesday announced the indictments of 30 people in a sweeping narcotics case that involved at least one fatal overdose, calling for a “death by dealer” state law that would allow for felony homicide charges in cases resulting in overdoses. 

“Despite the warnings, despite the carnage, we still get inaction,” Tierney said at a news conference at the Arthur M. Cromarty Court Complex in Riverhead, flanked by law enforcement partners and a table that bore some, though not all, the confiscated possessions of the alleged dealers: guns, cash, sachets of cocaine and an animal sedative called “tranq.”

Police and investigators also confiscated fentanyl as part of the investigation but said that drug was too lethal for display. 

Synthetics like fentanyl — cheap, potent and often mixed with other drugs like heroin — helped drive opioid deaths in New York State to nearly triple between 2010 and 2020, and in 2021 there were more than 5,800 such deaths statewide, according to a report last year by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office. The latest totals from the state Health Department put confirmed opioid overdose deaths on Long Island in 2021 at 699 and 517 in 2022.   

Treatment experts have said opioids are easily available on Long Island, with prices as cheap as $10 for a bag of heroin or $20 for a pill of counterfeit Percocet or Xanax, all attainable in minutes. 

The first indictment Tierney announced involved a distribution operation he said was led by a North Amityville member of the Bloods street gang, Dushane Telfer, 30.

Telfer’s operation allegedly spanned from Long Island’s East End to Queens, and between Feb. 13 and June 11, authorities recovered 763 grams of fentanyl and roughly 585 grams of cocaine from Telfer and nine co-defendants through undercover buys and confiscations. 

One of that operation’s drug sales led to the February overdose death of Michelle Tomitz, 30, survived by her Smithtown parents and 6-year-old daughter, Tierney said. 

The second indictment involved a 30-year-old Greenport man, Paris Parks, also allegedly a Blood, who was charged with possession of cocaine and fentanyl in July, Tierney said. Along with seven co-defendants, he allegedly sold those drugs to undercover officers in transactions as large as $10,000 in an operation that ran from Islandia to Yaphank. 

Parks was charged with criminal possession and faces up to 20 years in prison.

“Paris Parks is an individual who has never been arrested before and we have entered a plea of not guilty,” Parks’ lawyer, Islip Terrace-based Robert Macedonio, said in a phone interview. “We look forward to reviewing the documentation and are confident Mr. Parks will be fully vindicated in a court of law.”

The third indictment was a cocaine distribution conspiracy led by a West Babylon member of the Trinitarios gang, Gabriel Fernandez, 33, Tierney said. Between March and July, he and 11 co-defendants made eight alleged drug sales to undercover officers, Tierney said.

Authorities found a felony-level quantity of cocaine at his house, Tierney said, and in addition to possession charged him with money laundering because he had taken drug payments through cash apps and used the proceeds to pay off his mortgage. Authorities are working to confiscate the house, Tierney said. 

The three defendants are each charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance. Telfer faces up to 24 years in prison; Parks and Fernandez face up to 20. Lawyers for Telfer and Fernandez did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Monthslong investigations by a multiagency partnership of prosecutors, police and federal law enforcement, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, used more than 100 search warrants for cellphones, homes and vehicles. The investigations yielded 132 charges including long-term conspiracies to distribute narcotics, the sale and possession of narcotics, money laundering and the possession of multiple illegal firearms, according to a release from Tierney’s office.

Asked about the gang affiliation of the suspects, Tierney said, “These are lucrative rackets. Having gang affiliation helps protect your piece of turf.”

All 30 defendants have been arrested; 10 were scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday and six had already been arraigned. Ten of the defendants — including three charged with weapons offenses — were charged with bail eligible offenses, according to the release. 

Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Family & Children's Association, an organization that runs treatment and recovery programs on Long Island, said in an interview the indictments might stem — but would not stop — Long Island’s drug trade. 

“Every dose they take off the street potentially saves a life,” he said. But it’s “like a game of Whack-a-Mole — you take one group out and another pops up, because there is so much demand in the community … As long as there’s that demand for drugs, you’re going to have dealers enter the space and peddle their poison.” 

While Reynolds said he supported use of so-called death by dealer laws for large-scale traffickers, he said any statute would have to be drawn and used judiciously. 

“You’ve got to be careful you’re not sweeping up low-level folks who are addicted,” he said. After insurance denials, he said, the stigma of addiction is one of the main reasons people are “afraid to ask for help.” 

Legislation in 2021 sponsored by then State Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) and Assemb. Judy Griffin (D-Rockville Centre) would have allowed enhanced charges to be leveled against dealers whose customers die of overdoses, but the bills stalled in committee. Kaminsky did not respond to an emailed request for comment. 

As Tierney’s news conference ended, Tomitz’s parents, Kevin and Mary Tomitz, recalled their daughter, a “quiet girl” who “just got down the wrong track,” Kevin Tomitz said. 

Asked by reporters why they’d attended the news conference, Mary Tomitz said “Something has to be done — we’re losing too many people, too many young people.”

Correction: The name of the Drug Enforcement Administration was inaccurate in an earlier version of this story.