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Long Island resident Wilkens Adonis, 39, of Holbrook, entered the formal plea in Suffolk County Court on Monday, March 17, in the death of his 14-month-old son, Joseph.
Suffolk County Police were called to Adonis’ residence on the morning of Jan. 3, 2024, for an unresponsive child, prosecutors said. They found the boy unconscious in a bedroom shared by Adonis and the boy’s mother, Daryllee Leibrook.
The boy was taken by ambulance to Stony Brook University Hospital where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy conducted by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that he died from acute mixed drug intoxication with a mixture of heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a powerful, synthetic opioid that is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. The drug has led to a growing number of overdose deaths across the country, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
A search of the couple’s home by Suffolk County Police narcotics detectives revealed a mixture of heroin and fentanyl, along with cocaine, alprazolam, and methadone. They also uncovered drug packaging materials, digital scales, a loaded shotgun, and an electronic stun gun, all of which were easily accessible to the couple's children, prosecutors said.
Adonis faces between five and 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter, a crime that Suffolk County DA Raymond Tierney noted his office typically cannot charge in such cases.
14-month-old Joseph Adonis died in January 2024 from a fentanyl and cocaine overdose at a home in Holbrook.
“The death of Joseph Adonis represents one of the most heartbreaking cases our office has ever handled,” Tierney said.
“Because of this defendant’s extreme recklessness here, we were able to charge him with manslaughter. In most cases like these, we cannot charge manslaughter or murder and that’s why we need the New York Legislature to pass Chelsey’s Law.”
If approved by lawmakers, “Chelsey’s Law” would make selling, delivering, or otherwise administering a controlled substance eligible for manslaughter charges if someone later dies from an overdose, as Daily Voice reported.
Under current law, a person who provides an illicit drug that results in death can typically only be charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance, a non-violent felony.
The proposed law would be named in honor of Chelsey Murray, a 31-year-old Suffolk County woman who died from a fentanyl overdose in August 2022.
Her death was one of more than 400 in Suffolk County that year that resulted from drug overdoses, many from fentanyl, according to the district attorney’s office.
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