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Montrose residents Virginia DeMicheli and Ceresa Gonzalez, mother and sister of heroin dealer Stefano DeMicheli, react to news that the 26-year-old was sentenced to 40 years in prison after he failed a drug treatment program.

LOHUD THE JOURNAL NEWS

Written by

Shawn Cohen

The mother of a street-level heroin dealer sentenced to 40 years in prison lashed out at the Putnam County judge and district attorney, saying they scapegoated her son for the suburban heroin epidemic by meting out a punishment harsher than many murderers get.

“It’s like they want a feather in their caps for winning the war on drugs,” Virginia DeMicheli of Montrose told The Journal News on Thursday, a week after her 26-year-old son, Stefano, was sentenced. “I don’t think he should go unpunished. But 40 years is unfathomable. Why not arrest and make an example out of a drug dealer at the top of the chain, or the suppliers? Why go after a small town young man, one without the means to defend himself?”

She cried as she added, “He’ll be 66 years old when he comes out. I’ll never see my son again outside of jail. I’ll be dead.”

District Attorney Adam Levy made a personal appearance in November to argue for the maximum sentence to hold Stefano DeMicheli accountable for failed drug tests, missed counseling sessions and other arrests while participating in a drug treatment program.

By failing out of the judicial diversion program, Stefano DeMicheli put himself in a position to get sentenced on the felony drug conviction that put him there.

He faced up to 12 years on each of four counts for a December 2011 arrest in which police found him with 35 bags of heroin and 19 bags of crack cocaine.

On sentencing day Jan. 30, Stefano DeMicheli’s legal aid lawyer Brian Carlin told the judge that “even a sentence of 12 years would be greater than any sentence ever given out in this court.”

Assistant District Attorney Sarah Crabtree countered that Stefano DeMicheli made a mockery of the program that allows some nonviolent offenders to pursue treatment instead of jail time.

“He was selling narcotics and part of a narcotics ring while a participant in treatment court,” she said. “I did take the program seriously,” Stefano DeMicheli replied when given his chance to speak. “I never took it as a joke. This is my (life). I made a lot of mistakes. I was young, and I really regret everything that I’ve done.”

Judge James Reitz expressed his own regret that he accepted Stefano DeMicheli into the program, over the district attorney’s objections. He thanked God that the young man didn’t kill anyone before sentencing him to 10 years on each count to run consecutively. “You had an arrogance about you that you can do anything you want at any time you want and get away with it,” the judge said.

The ruling came days after three young Westchester residents died of suspected heroin overdoses, including two from the Cortlandt area where Stefano DeMicheli grew up. Then on Sunday, the heroin scourge made national headlines after actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his Manhattan apartment, a syringe sticking from his arm.

Seizing the spotlight Monday, the Putnam district attorney touted Stefano DiMicheli’s sentence in a press release through his public relations firm.

“We applaud Judge Reitz’s decision, and hope it serves as a deterrent to others who don’t take the program seriously,” Levy said. At home in Montrose, however, Stefano DeMicheli’s mother and sister were reeling from a decision they said came as a complete surprise. They said they were never notified that there would be a sentencing Jan. 30.

The defense lawyer said during the hearing that he, too, didn’t know his client was to be sentenced that day. The prosecutor and judge, however, rejected his request for a postponement.

The family didn’t learn about the ruling until a couple days later.

“It’s overwhelming to me, shocking, unbelievable,” said Virginia DeMicheli, a nurse at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. “People who commit murder, rape and manslaughter are out walking the streets in a matter of years.”

Adele Bernhard, a professor at New York Law School who served on a national task force that researched drug courts, agreed that “it’s probably a pretty extreme sentence.”

“There’s nothing really to show he was some big-time dealer who was conspiring with the Cali cartel,” Bernhard said.

Stefano DeMicheli’s family describe him as a loyal, loving and family-oriented young man who’s made many bad decisions. They don’t deny that he peddled heroin or abused drugs, but note that he has not been connected to any heroin overdose deaths.

“They’re abusing their power to make an example of him,” said his sister, Ceresa Gonzalez, 32. “I resent the implication that his drug sales are directly linked to the deaths. There’s no way to know that, and it wasn’t ever part of the case.”

They also said he made a sincere effort in the drug treatment program.

But his problems went well beyond that. Prosecutors noted that by the time he entered the program in 2012, Stefano DeMicheli had already been charged with 38 offenses, including 29 felonies.

Then in March, Westchester County police and federal authorities arrested him at his family’s home and seized a loaded gun that, according to law enforcement sources, was believed to have been used in a drug-related shooting. The arrest was part of an investigation into crack and heroin sales in Peekskill.

On Wednesday, Stefano DeMicheli phoned his mother from the Westchester County jail. “He’s devastated, he’s really scared,” Virginia DeMicheli said. “He said, ‘Mom, I need help. I know I’ve done things wrong, but I don’t deserve this.’ ”