SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — A Long Island man pleaded guilty to manslaughter for his role in the fatal overdose of his son, 14-month-old Joseph Adonis, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney announced on Tuesday.
Wilkens Adonis, 39, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, drug charges and endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.
On Jan. 3, 2024, Suffolk County Police received a call reporting an unresponsive child at the Holbrook home of Adonis and his girlfriend, 38-year-old Daryllee Leibrock. Joseph Adonis was found unresponsive in couple’s bedroom and taken via ambulance to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“The death of Joseph Adonis represents one of the most heartbreaking cases our office has ever handled,” Tierney said.
When investigators searched the home, they found drugs and drug paraphernalia in the bedroom where Joseph Adonis was found. An autopsy later determined that his cause of death was acute mixed drug intoxication by heroin, cocaine and fentanyl.
A search warrant of the apartment was executed, and officials discovered over one-eighth ounce of a mixture of heroin and fentanyl, over one-eighth ounce of cocaine, alprazolam, methadone, drug packaging materials, digital scales, an electronic stun gun, a loaded shotgun and a rifle.
According to prosecutors, all the substances and objects were left unsecured and easily accessible to the couple’s children.
“Because of this defendant’s extreme recklessness here, we were able to charge him with manslaughter,” Tierney said. 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.”
Chelsey’s Law is a New York State Assembly Bill that states that a person commits the crime of manslaughter or aggravated manslaughter when they know or have reasonable grounds to know that a drug is likely to cause the death of another person and sells, administers, delivers or causes the delivery of the drug anyway.
Adonis faces a maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison and is due back in court on April 17.
Leibrock is also charged on a 20-count indictment in connection the Joseph Adonis’ death.