Families throughout the region will mark Thanksgiving with sadness this year because a loved one who died from a heroin overdose will be missing from the dinner table.

Griswold teenager Olivia Roark, who died on May 29 after overdosing on heroin with fentanyl at a Groton motel, would have turned 18 last Sunday. Her father, Bob Roark, said his family, which has since relocated to Myrtle Beach, S.C., released balloons and prayed and are planning to plant palm trees, which Olivia loved, in their backyard. The Roarks returned to Connecticut to celebrate the holiday with relatives and are managing as best they can, he said in a phone interview.

Other families will feel the pain of absence this holiday because their parents, siblings or children — often addicts themselves — are in prison for distributing the heroin that contributed to somebody's death.

Prosecuting those who sell heroin to users who overdose and die is part of a new initiative introduced earlier this year, when opioid overdoses spiked. Local, state and federal authorities have worked together on the cases.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, approximately 45 individuals have been charged statewide, 38 of them in federal court and seven in state court. The Drug Enforcement Administration has 89 open investigations and the FBI is working on other cases.

On Monday, Rudy Hernandez, 43, of New London was sentenced to 34 months in prison for distributing heroin involved in the April 12 overdose death in Groton of 25-year-old Brent Johnston.

Hernandez, who is married with teenage children and stepchildren, had worked steadily as a forklift operator and house painter before he began selling heroin to support his own burgeoning addiction, according to court documents.

"I feel horrible about what happened and that the person lost his life that way," he said in a statement to the court. "I think about it every day. I wish I was there to help him. I wish I could have saved his life. I did not think about anyone losing their life from heroin. That was a mistake that I made. It could have happened to me because I was doing more and more heroin. I was an addict."

While the families of overdose victims say the suppliers should be charged with manslaughter or even murder, authorities often cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the drugs were the direct cause of the person's death.

Instead, they charge the accused suppliers with heroin distribution. The charge carries a 20-year maximum sentence, but in federal court, where most of the cases are being tried, judges must consider sentencing guidelines that take into account the offense and the defendant's criminal history.

"A lot of the defendants are just starting to be sentenced now, and some of the victims' families have spoken at sentencing hearings," said Tom Carson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office. "At the end of the day, the charge is heroin distribution, but the fact that someone died might influence the judge."

In Hernandez's case, the guidelines called for a sentence of 37 to 46 months in prison. U.S. District Judge Michael P. Shea imposed a sentence of 34 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.

Hernandez had sold the heroin to 33-year-old Timothy Paprocki of Ledyard, who then sold a $40 bag to Johnston, who became unconscious after injecting the contents, according to police. Paprocki, who admitted to police that he drove around with the incapacited Johnston for an unknown amount of time before seeking medical help for him, is also charged in the case and is incarcerated.

Two days after Johnston's death, New London police searched Hernandez's 264 Colman St. residence and seized heroin and cocaine, as well as multiple cellphones.

In an unexpected last-minute development in the case, the prosecution provided Hernandez's attorney with a copy of the victim's autopsy report, which indicates that he died of "acute ethanol intoxication," or alcohol poisoning, rather than a heroin overdose. The report lists ethanol and caffeine, but not heroin, as substances found in Johnston's system, according to a court document.

A spokesman for the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed the finding this week, saying the cause of death was acute ethanol intoxication and the manner accidental.

Given Paprocki's eyewitness account of Johnston's heroin use in the hours before his death, the cause of death is puzzling. The time frame between when he used the heroin and his death is unclear.

"It's possible he died so instantly, the drug (heroin/fentanyl) did not have enough time to enter the blood stream," said Sgt. Nick Parham of the Groton Town Police Department, supervisor of the Regional Community Enhancement Task Force that made the arrests in the case.

Prosecution can be difficult

Dr. Robert Forney, chief toxicologist at the Lucas County Coroner's Office in Ohio, proposed several possible explanations during a telephone interview this week. Forney had visited Connecticut a week earlier for a summit on drugged driving, a problem he says has escalated exponentially.

He said it's possible that Johnston thought he was using heroin but it was another substance, or that as a result of the passage of time, the heroin fell below the ability of the laboratory to detect it. Heroin disappears from the blood within minutes, but the actual drug that gives the high, morphine, should be present in the blood or urine, he said. Injected heroin would not be detectable in the patient's stomach contents, he said.

In Ohio, there have been hundreds of deaths but only a few prosecutions, Forney said.

"The difficulty is having enough evidence that the prosecutor thinks they can go forward," he said. "You have to be able to prove it was the material that the (drug) pusher actually sold that caused the death. It's very difficult. It may sound good to grieving parents."

In the case of Olivia Roark, 40-year-old Ramon "B.I." Gomez of New London pleaded guilty on Nov. 17 to sex trafficking of a minor and possession with intent to distribute heroin. Authorities said he lured the teen to the hotel on Memorial Day Weekend, arranged to have her advertise herself as a prostitute on Backpage.com and provided the heroin that caused her death.

Under a plea agreement with the government, Gomez, who is being held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center in lieu of $250,000, is expected to be sentenced Feb. 10 in U.S. District Court in Hartford. Sentencing guidelines call for a sentence of 12.5 to 15.6 years in prison. He also will face a fine of up to $300,000 and a period of supervised release and will be required to register as a sex offender, according to court documents.

Also charged in Roark's case was Adele Bouthillier, 42, who was staying with Roark and another woman at the Flagship Inn & Suites. Bouthillier told authorities she obtained heroin from Gomez, her longtime drug dealer, on the morning of May 28 and used it with Roark and Melissa Crickmore. 

Bouthillier has posted a $25,000 bond and been released to a drug rehabilitation program while her case is pending, according to court documents.

k.florin@theday.com