Pair charged in fatal heroin case

Gloucester Police Monday arrested a "boyfriend and girlfriend" at his apartment on Cleveland Place on charges they provided the bag of heroin that was shared by Amanda Scola and her fiance Michael Rogers — the 26-year-old man who died Feb. 17 of a suspected overdose, according to documents released to the Times.

Jeremiah Sullivan, 32, and Rheanna Bednarik, 31, were being held late Monday in Gloucester on bail — $5,000 for him, $1,000 for her — as well as on the presumption of probation violations, according to Chief Michael Lane.

With past records of drug violations, they were arraigned in District Court on the probation and new charges.

For Sullivan, these include distributing heroin, a Class A controlled substance, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs and negligent operation, and leaving the scene of an accident.

Bednarik was charged with larceny, and with being present where heroin was kept.

Sullivan was to be transferred to the Essex County Jail in Middleton, while Bednarik was to be sent to the state Correctional Institution in Framingham, pending hearings on the probation violations of the charges.

Sullivan and Bednarik admitted their involvement in the sale of the killer heroin to Scola after police entered the apartment on Cleveland Place Monday morning with a search warrant. The couple gave authorities separate but roughly parallel stories after waiving their Miranda rights, according to police.

According to police reports, Scola confessed to police that she obtained the heroin for Rogers, with whom she had two children, according to the obituary submitted by his family and published in the Times a week ago today.

The primary source of the heroin sold to Scola is still "under investigation," according to Detective Kenneth Ryan, who coordinated the investigation with county and staff detectives.

Scola described Rogers as pressuring her to make the buy for him, which they shared before she went to sleep in their apartment on Cleveland Street. Cleveland Place, where the suspects were arrested, runs north off Cleveland Street; Cleveland Place is a dead end.

When she awoke, she said, Rogers was unconscious; he was declared dead after he was taken by ambulance to Addison Gilbert Hospital.

The deaths of Rogers and of Andrew Moulton, 27, who succumbed to an apparent heroin overdose Feb. 21, have cast a pall over many in the city, and spurred new calls for raising awareness of anti-substance abuse programs, including the Healthy Gloucester Collaborative and the peer-support group Learn to Cope.

A letter from four Healthy Gloucester Collaborative partners — including Chief Lane and Addison Gilbert Hospital chief Cynthia Cafasso-Donaldson — appears on Page 6 of today's Times.

In the oral statement that was given and recorded by police after she waived her Miranda rights, Scola said that "Michael made her go to Jeremiah Sullivan's apartment," who after taking $50, made a call and left the apartment for one or two minutes and gave her the bag of heroin.

She said "she then brought back to her apartment where (she) and Michael shared in shooting up, stating that Michael did more than she did," according to the report. Scola has not been charged in the case, police said.

According to Ryan's written narrative of the day's events, their stories, given independently to police, "basically corroborated Scola's story," but it also contained reference to hard evidence in a diary entry made in Bednarik's diary.

"When finding a diary of Ms. Bednarik and examining it for possible drug notes and information," Ryan wrote, "(under) the date of Feb. 20, Ms. Bednarik makes mention to the fact in a passage, 'On the 17th Mikey Rogers overdosed and died on a bag we got him.'"

According to the report, Sullivan and Bednarik seemed to be expecting the police because of the news of Rogers' death.

Ryan said the police used Scola's statement and evidence on the cell phone of Russell G. Field III, who was arrested on Jan. 31 for selling heroin, to get the search warrant for Sullivan's apartment. The information on the cell phone — implicating Sullivan with buying heroin to sell from Field — was gained also via an earlier search warrant.

That information was in the application for the search warrant to enter the Sullivan apartment.

Sullivan and Bednarik as well as Rogers and Scola were known uses of heroin, according to the documents.

Rogers reportedly tested clean recently at his reports to the Probation Department, Chief Lane told the Times last week.

When officers, Sgt. Michael Williams and Patrolman Jerome Ciolino first entered the Rogers apartment after he was transported unconscious to the hospital on Feb. 17, Ryan said there was "an empty bag of heroin ... on the kitchen table," and the needle and syringe in the bedroom.

According to the police report, the first description of Rogers' overdose was given to police at the hospital by a cousin of the victim, who said her last conversation with him took place while he was "at times incoherent," and his speech "slurred."

That conversation was via telephone at a bit after 4 p.m.; the woman told police of the conversation about four hours later, after Rogers had died, police reports indicate.

"She explained that she got very upset with him for being this way and getting high, as she demanded he tell her where he got the heroin, and after some prodding, he stated that he got it from 'Miah,'"

With that, she was aware that he was referring to Jeremiah Sullivan, police said.

"At this point," while still at the hospital, Scola also was briefly questioned by the police. But Ryan's narrative noted that Scola "was in no condition to be interviewed at length (because) she appeared to be under the influence."

Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.

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