Father and son charged in fentanyl-related fatal overdoses of 3 Sussex County residents

A Sussex Borough father and son have been charged in the fentanyl-laced overdose deaths of three borough residents, who all died within a week, authorities said.

Victor Johnson, 45, and his son, Aljauan Sanders, 18, were indicted June 20 on 11 counts, including three counts of first-degree strict liability death and charges for distribution, conspiracy to distribute and knowingly engaging in conduct that creates substantial risk of death to another person, crimes of the third-degree. The men were expected to be arraigned in state Superior Court in Sussex County on Tuesday.

The New Jersey State Police responded to three different locations in Sussex Borough on March 30, April 1 and April 4, in relation to drug overdoses, according to court documents obtained by the New Jersey Herald. Despite efforts by first responders, the three residents, who were between the ages of 25 and 60, died, prompting local and state authorities to further investigate.

Johnson and Sanders, who lived with his father in a Main Street apartment, were initially hit with drug-related charges in early April after cellphone conversations found on one of the victim's phones linked drug sales to Johnson, documents show. On April 4, police searched the apartment via search warrant and allegedly found multiple vials of crack cocaine and 27 individually dosed and packaged cocaine ready for distribution under a television stand in Johnson's bedroom and two doses of cocaine in Sanders' desk drawer in his bedroom, police said. A scale consistent with the sale of narcotics was also found in the home, police said.

Charges against Johnson and Sanders were upgraded on June 12 after autopsy reports determined the three victims died after ingesting cocaine laced with fentanyl, police documents state.

Each count of first-degree strict liability for drug-induced death exposes each man, if convicted, of up to two decades in prison.

Distributing 'bad batches' of cocaine

Sanders told police in April he and his father started selling illicit drugs around Christmas 2023 to pay their bills, documents show. Johnson would get his drugs from Newark, Sanders said, and he and his father regularly supplied to people in the area, including the three victims whom he called "friends."

Sanders, who became "very upset and emotional" when told of the three overdose deaths, admitted that he was aware one of the "batches" of cocaine his father had obtained from a different source was "bad," meaning it had been laced with fentanyl, and said he flushed his portion of the batch down the toilet, documents show. Sanders told police his father "wasn't sure" if the batch was bad, but appeared worried about what he had distributed, according to the documents.

Containers with packaged cocaine found in the apartment were identical to those found at the scene of all three overdoses, police said. Lab results later confirmed fentanyl was present in the cocaine found in the apartment, documents show.

Drug overdose death numbers are lower than 2023 so far

Despite March and April's drug-related deaths, there have not been a consistent jump in suspected overdoses in Sussex County this year.

There have been 17 suspected overdose deaths in the county through July, akin to numbers from the same time period in 2023 and 2022, according to data from the state Department of Health .

Last year, Sussex County had 23 suspected overdose deaths, the lowest reported since 2014, according to data from the state. Numbers reached 44 in 2020 at the peak of the opioid epidemic as a "hot batch" of fentanyl-laced heroin led to the death of 11 people in Sussex County in January 2020, prosecutors told the New Jersey Herald at the time.

New Jersey is seeing a continued decrease in suspected overdose deaths so far this year compared with 2023, where numbers had already slowed . There have been 1,119 suspected overdoses from the start of 2024 through July 20 in the Garden State, compared to 1,581 during the same time period in 2023 (although through the end of July), data from the state Department of Health shows.

The number of overdose deaths in the Garden State dropped significantly in 2023 after years of surging due to the opioid crisis. In 2023, there were 2,564 compared to 3,054 in 2022 and 3,144 in 2021. Counselors attributed a rise in drug use during the COVID-19 pandemic to anxiety and depression brought on by social isolation and fear of getting sick.

Email: lcomstock@njherald.com ; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook .

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Father and son charged in fentanyl-related fatal overdoses of 3 Sussex County residents