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Suffolk County District Attorney

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Christopher Foster mugshot from the DA's office

A Long Island man has been convicted of beating his month-old son to death and faces up to 25 years in prison.

According to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, a jury convicted the 32-year-old Kings Park man of first-degree manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child four years after the boy, who was 43 days old, was killed.

The defendant, Christopher Foster, was found not guilty of second-degree murder.

The DA’s office said in a press release that an autopsy showed infant Jonathan Hertzler had suffered a fractured skull, four broken ribs and bruises on his face. When he died on Oct. 11, 2011, his fatal injuries had been caused by multiple blows.

Clarissa Hertzler, the boy’s mother, testified that Foster often became angry when the baby cried, the DA’s office said, and the infant “was a source of constant aggravation.”

According to the DA’s office, Assistant District Attorney Dana Brown told the jury that the night the baby died, Foster was the last person to hold him. She said Foster called his boss — not 911 — to report Jonathan was not breathing.

First-degree manslaughter is a Class B felony, and is defined as occurring when an adult intends to cause physical injury to someone younger than 11 years old and “recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of serious physical injury … and thereby causes the death of such a person,” the DA’s office said.

Foster was remanded to the county jail and will be sentenced on Sept. 8. He faces up to 25 years in state prison.

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Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota, above, said Winston Rose and his brother Uriel Rose purchased drugs from Robert Maldonado for $3.50 per bag — a full dollar cheaper than last year’s whole sale price. Photo by Giselle Barkley

Suffolk County police, alongside the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor of New York City, united to bust a heroin ring operating on Long Island, officials announced on Wednesday.

A wiretap investigation, conducted by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office and county police narcotics unit, lead to the arrests and indictment of 14 individuals involved in the ring, including alleged leaders Winston Rose, 35, of Deer Park and his brother, Uriel Rose, 31, of Bay Shore. Residents from Rocky Point, Coram and Northport were also charged.

According to District Attorney Tom Spota, between the months of April and May, Robert Maldonado, 28, of the Bronx, allegedly delivered more than 20,000 bags of heroin from the borough to the Rose brothers on Long Island. Kenny Gonzalez, of Bay Shore, also supplied the brothers with heroin for their drug operation.

“The source of the heroin that we see flowing into Suffolk is primarily coming from the City of New York and more often than not, from the Bronx,” Spota said following the arraignments on Wednesday.

The Rose brothers were indicted for operating as major traffickers, as investigators claim they sold heroin and cocaine in Suffolk communities and elsewhere from around Dec. 4, 2014 to June 4, 2015. The brothers sold around 325 to 500 bags daily for $10.

Phil Murphy, the attorney representing Winston Rose, said he did not see an issue with his client’s business when he visited. He also said his client had rental property and rented available gyms among other materials for the business.

Calls to attorneys for Uriel Rose, Maldonado and Gonzalez were not immediately returned.

Winston Rose was on parole for possession of a weapon at the time of his arrest. In addition, he has nine prior felony and misdemeanor convictions while his brother has six prior misdemeanor convictions. Four of these convictions were for drugs.

According to Spota, the brothers posed as businessmen and allegedly used an event and catering business based out of Deer Park as a front to peddle drugs.

The brothers, as well as Desiree Dietz, 33, of Rocky Point; Emily Ruiz, 24, of Deer Park; Daniel Demaio, 23, of Northport; James Lantero, 41, of Bay Shore; Edward Molewski, 47, of East Islip; Charles Hennings, 41 of Coram and Dillon Noseda, 26, of Northport were arraigned in Riverhead as well. The individuals, along with five others, have been charged with conspiracy in the second degree, a Class B felony in the state of New York.

Noseda is accused of being a major seller of heroin in the Village of Northport and the surrounding communities. Ian Fitzgerald, Noseda’s attorney, said his client denied being a major seller in the case. In a phone interview, he said his client only knew Winston Rose for about two months.

Attorney information for Dietz, Ruiz, Demaio, Lantero, Molewski, and Hennings was unavailable.

“Somebody and some day they are all going to know that they’re never going to see the light of day if they’re convicted,” Spota said.

Bail for Winston Rose was set at $3 million cash or $6 million bond, while Uriel Rose’s bail was set at $2 million cash, or $4 million bond.

If convicted as major traffickers, the Rose’s face a minimum sentence of 15 to 25 years, to a maximum life sentence, according to Spota.

Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan said solving individual cases such as this case, might not “end the crisis,” but have a significant local impact.

According to Special Agent James Hunt, of the DEA, heroin related deaths have increased 172 percent from 2003 to 2013.

Spota attributes their success to the collaborative efforts of all law enforcement officials who were involved. Brennan agreed and said that collaboration will help overcome the distribution of heroin.

“We are now facing a huge heroin problem,” she said. “The only way to beat it is the way we’re doing it. Step by step case by case joining hands and not just us alone but with the collaboration of many others.”

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File photo

A contingent of 21 Latinos from Suffolk County has filed a class-action federal lawsuit suit against the Suffolk County Police Department, claiming several officers robbed them or issued them traffic citations in unfounded, race-based stops over a 10-year period.

Lawyers also charge the department with failing to correct a culture of discriminatory policing that has existed for years within the police force.

The case comes more than a year after Suffolk County Police Sgt. Scott Greene was arrested after a January 2014 sting operation uncovered he was taking money from a Latino driver. The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Wednesday, April 29, lists Suffolk County, its police department, Police Chief Ed Webber, Greene and others as defendants. LatinoJustice PRLDEF and the firm Shearman & Sterling LLP are litigating the case pro bono.

Greene’s arrest sparked the lawsuit, according to the attorneys. LatinoJustice PRLDEF and the nonprofit organization Make the Road New York, which provides services for Latino and working class families, claimed after Greene’s arrest it learned from “dozens of victims who had been too afraid or thought it pointless, to complain about widespread police criminality,” according to a statement by LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

Meanwhile, Bob Clifford, spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota, responded to the suit in a statement last week. He said that after the DA’s office spent hundreds of hours interviewing more than 50 individuals with LatinoJustice PRLDEF and Make the Road New York, two indictments encompassing 81 criminal charges involving 27 Hispanic victims were returned against Greene alone.

“There is no credible evidence that Greene acted with other police officers,” Clifford said.

All the 21 plaintiffs are anonymous and all, except for one, are male, according to the lawsuit. In a phone interview this week, Foster Maer, senior litigation counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF, declined to provide details on where in Suffolk the individuals live, nor could he say if they are related to one another. The sting operation involving Greene occurred in the Farmingville, Medford and Coram areas, according to the lawsuit.

In its statement, LatinoJustice PRLDEF alleges that most of its 21 plaintiffs were stopped and robbed while driving, while others were sitting in a parked vehicle or walking down the street.

“The victims claimed that one or more officers would, in clear violation of police rules, get a hold of the victim’s wallet and then return it a few minutes later with one or two hundred dollars missing,” according to the statement.

The firm also stated that it requested the DA expand the investigation beyond Greene and claims the DA “has not replied to the request and in fact has only indicted Sgt. Greene in the robberies.”

Clifford, in his statement, however, said some of the incidents LatinoJustice PRLDEF claims the DA ignored are covered by the indictment against Greene.

“At no time did LatinoJustice provide any information whatsoever that any victims were robbed by police officers,” he said. “At no time did LatinoJustice provide any audio tape to investigators regarding any alleged crime.”

Asked how the firms would prove the alleged crimes occurred by officers other than Greene, Maer said the case would rely on victim testimony as “pretty hard proof.” He also said Suffolk County has access to location data of police cars, something he hopes will help narrow down officers involved in crimes.

Scrutiny of Suffolk County’s police practices toward Latinos is not new. In 2013, the county Legislature ratified a settlement with the federal Department of Justice, culminating a five-year long investigation following the stabbing death of Ecuadorian Marcelo Lucero, labeled a hate crime.

The 2008 case, which ignited tensions in the county over perceived anti-Hispanic bias within the department, also gained national prominence. That settlement outlines a number of reforms within the department, including a minimum of annual training for officers on removing bias from policing and on identifying hate crimes; designating officers who will interface with local communities to hear concerns and work to solve neighborhood problems; meeting with leaders of the Latino community as well as other minority communities for feedback; and sending all allegations, formal or informal, of police misconduct to the SCPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau for investigation, as well as track complaints and analyze trends.

“As we have done continuously since the beginning of this investigation, we continue to urge victims to contact the district attorney’s office,” Clifford said.

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District Attorney Tom Spota holds up a jar Brittany Ozarowski used while falsely claiming she had cancer to solicit donations. File photo by Erika Karp

The Selden native who tricked Long Islanders into believing she had cancer and used donations to fund her heroin habit was sentenced to prison on Monday, after she violated the terms of a mandated drug treatment program, Suffolk County District Attorney Tom Spota said.

Brittany Ozarowski will spend one to three years behind bars after violating the terms of her drug treatment program. File photo
Brittany Ozarowski will spend one to three years behind bars after violating the terms of her drug treatment program. File photo

In December 2013, Brittany Ozarowski, 24, pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree larceny; 10 counts of second-degree forgery; 10 counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing; one count of first-degree scheming to defraud; and one count of petit larceny. While the District Attorney’s office wanted Ozarowski to serve a maximum seven-year prison term, Judge John Iliou instead required her to enroll in the Suffolk County Judicial Diversion Program, an alternative sentencing program that includes drug addiction treatment instead of jail. Ozarowski’s sentence included one year of inpatient treatment, one year of outpatient treatment and a year of probation.

On Monday, Spota announced in a press release that she had violated the program’s terms and had thus been sentenced to one to three years in prison.

George Duncan, a Central Islip-based attorney representing Ozarowski, said while Ozarowski received “technical violations” that resulted in her prison sentence, her time spent in the treatment program “literally saved her life,” and she is aware and thankful for that.

Duncan and the DA’s office were unable to specify how exactly Ozarowski broke program rules, as doing so would violate the federal health care privacy laws.

Ozarowski was indicted on 24 counts and arrested in April 2013. According to the DA’s office, she claimed she had bone and brain cancer to solicit donations from customers at supermarkets and shops throughout Long Island, including in Terryville, Miller Place and Sayville. In addition, she got local businesses to hold fundraisers to benefit her alleged treatments and created a website with a PayPal account where people could donate. In reality, she was using the money to fuel her heroin addiction.

At the time of her arrest, investigators discovered more than $317 in a donation bucket. More than 20 locations with donation jars were later found and the DA’s office estimated Ozarowski defrauded more than $6,000.

The 2013 arrest wasn’t Ozarowski’s first. She has other heroin-related charges against her, including a driving under the influence charge from 2011, which is still pending. The DA’s office said the Newfield High School graduate tampered with letters from doctors to say she had cancer and submitted them to her attorney in order to postpone court hearings on the charges.

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James Murphy mugshot from the DA's office

A Huntington man who admitted to huffing an aerosol cleaner before getting behind the wheel on New Year’s eve in 2013 and broadsiding a 63-year-old Commack woman’s car, killing her, was sentenced to four to 12 years in prison on Friday, according to the Suffolk County DA’s office.

State Supreme Court Justice John Collins sentenced James Murphy, 20, in Riverhead this morning after what DA spokesman Bob Clifford described in an email as an emotional courtroom scene. Family members of victim Herta Palma attended the sentencing.

Murphy pleaded guilty on Feb. 26 to second-degree manslaughter, second-degree reckless endangerment, reckless driving and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. He was remanded to the county jail following his February plea.

On the day of the fatal crash, Murphy was driving a Chevy Blazer north on Commack Road when he sideswiped one car and ran a red light at the intersection with Hauppauge Road, according to a Thursday statement from the DA’s office. Murphy’s SUV broadsided the Hyundai sedan Palma was driving. Palma died soon after at Huntington Hospital.

District Attorney Thomas Spota said Murphy told cops at the scene of the crash in 2013, “I was driving the white Blazer. I’m not going to lie to you officer. I just inhaled a can of Dust Off and threw it in the back of my truck.”

He also told officers he took Xanax and smoked hash a couple of days earlier.

Clifford said Murphy told the court today that he made “bad choices.”

Murphy’s attorney didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on Friday afternoon.

According to Clifford, Palma’s son, Joe Palma Jr., spoke to the court as well, saying, “As a family we have already been given our sentence. A life sentence of pain and grief from the loss of a mother taken much too soon for no good reason.

“All of our lives have been forever altered. We will never be the same.”

Clifford said Herta Palma’s daughter-in-law, Mary, also spoke, saying that the victim had visited her Commack home that afternoon, reminding the family to be safe on New Year’s Eve. Palma was staying home on New Year’s Eve because she lost a friend years ago in a drunk-driving crash.

“We actually spoke of it, obviously not knowing as she drove away that her life was going to be taken within nine minutes of her leaving my home,” she said, according to Clifford. “As she was pulling away, she was waving with her big smile at me, blowing kisses. … I hold on to that memory every day.”

In his statement, Spota called on the New York State Legislature to include intoxicative inhalants to current statutes that make driving under the influence of a drug illegal.

“It is well-established science that people who abuse inhalants experience intoxication, muscle spasms, a loss of coordination, hallucinations and impaired judgment — and it is also a fact that for many teenagers, inhalants provide a cheap and accessible alternative to alcohol,” he said. “It is time New York State treats inhalants as intoxicating substances so prosecutors can charge offenders with driving while impaired by drugs in the first degree.”

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