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“I have seen so many heroin deaths — it’s disproportionate to the size of our county,” Presiding Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi told 22-year-old Uldis Mende. “You contributed to that, to more deaths from heroin — and that’s the most important factor in your sentence.”
Mende (above, left), a Latvian national who lives in Mahwah, was indicted by a Bergen County grand jury last year after being arrested as part of a large-scale, multi-jurisdictional operation intended to reduce the number of skyrocketing heroin overdose deaths in North Jersey.
Mende told a detective on tape that Apfelbaum contacted him by phone that fateful night, saying he wanted to “get something.” He identified a series of text messages to Costello — most made in truncated English to avoid using the terms “heroin” or “drugs” — in which the two eventually planned to go to Paterson.
After copping the drugs, he said, the two drove to the Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack and then the Garden State Plaza in Paramus before returning to Mende’s home in Mahwah.
Apfelbaum shot up at least twice and used somewhere between “two bags” and “10 decks” of heroin that night, Mende said in the recordedinterview. He said Apfelbaum promised to text him when he got home.
When he didn’t hear back, Mende said, he texted him but didn’t get an answer. He later admitted that he didn’t try to alert Apfelbaum’s family or authorities that his friend was missing and under the influence.
Three weeks after Harris Apfelbaum was found dead in Park Ridge, a Mahwah patrol officer stopped Mende for a traffic violation and found him carrying 70 decks of heroin intended for sale, records show.
Under Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli’s new anti-heroin initiative, detectives from the prosecutor’s office followed up.
A grand jury indictment secured by Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Danielle Grootenboer accused Mende of “causing the death” of Apfelbaum, “who died as a result of ingesting the drug.”
Mende, who was on probation for a disorderly persons offense that was downgraded from a more serious, drug-related charge,
got the reduced term in return for pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter.
He must serve a shade over 2½ and half years before he’ll be eligible for supervised parole. However, DeAvila-Silebi (above, right) said he’ll likely be deported once his term is up.
“We’ll leave that to the federal authorities,” she said.
FILE PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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