MONROE - Danny Douglas Mitchell was bound over for trial Friday on felony charges that he supplied the methadone that caused the 2013 overdose death of a 17-year-old inmate in the Green County Jail.
The 44-year-old Montello man appeared in Green County Circuit Court Friday afternoon for the last of three preliminary hearings. He faces a Class C felony charge of first-degree reckless homicide, a Class D felony charge of intentionally contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a Class I felony charge of delivering illegal articles to an inmate. He allegedly smuggled tobacco and methadone into the jail.
If convicted and punished to the full extent of the law, he faces more than 40 years imprisonment.
Mitchell's preliminary hearing began April 13, continued April 20 and ended Friday. The court heard testimony from the lead detective on the case, the jail administrator, and Mitchell's nephew, who says his uncle admitted to supplying the teen with methadone. Mitchell denies this accusation.
Also presented as evidence were autopsy results, medical records for Mitchell and hours of surveillance video from the cellblock that Mitchell shared for one day and two nights with Kyle S. Peotter, 17, at the end of January 2013.
A timeline emerged for the days leading up to Peotter's death from the evidence and testimony presented in court.
On Jan. 23, Mitchell purchased methadone with a prescription at the Monroe Clinic pharmacy. Methadone is a synthetic opiate used to treat severe chronic pain and heroin dependence. Mitchell's prescription was for chronic neck and back pain.
On Jan. 24, Mitchell was hospitalized for a purported drug overdose, after an ambulance was called to a Monroe-area motel for him, according to Detective Larry Keegan of the Monroe Police Department.
On Jan. 28, Mitchell turned himself in at the jail. He was patted down but not strip-searched, according to Lt. Paul Weichbrod, the jail administrator. It is jail policy and state law that probation prisoners and non-sentenced prisoners are not strip-searched. He was allowed to have an inhaler for his asthma while in jail.
Mitchell, however, disputes how jailers searched him. He says he was strip-searched.
That evening, Mitchell was put in Cellblock B with Peotter. They were the only two inmates in the cellblock.
"There was no sleep for either inmate all night," according to Weichbrod's minute-by-minute description of video surveillance. Instead, the video shows them staying up all night, appearing to pass something back and forth in the pages of a book and crouch repeatedly over a low shelf to snort a substance.
At one point, Weichbrod wrote in his report, Mitchell and Peotter stripped down to their underwear and appear to be hot and sweating profusely. They rubbed their noses repeatedly.
The next day, Jan. 29, the video shows Peotter drinking lots of water and bending over the toilet to vomit, again and again. That evening around 6 p.m., he appears to take a pill.
About a quarter after 10 that night, Weichbrod notes that Peotter, in bed at this point, kicks his legs under the blanket. It would be Peotter's last visible movement.
The next morning, Jan. 30, "Mitchell yelled that breakfast was ready, and Kyle Peotter did not respond," Weichbrod wrote in his report. Mitchell shook Peotter, then appears to retrieve something from inside Peotter's mattress. He pushes the emergency button to alert jailers of Peotter's death, then goes into his cell and flushes something down his toilet.
An autopsy of Peotter revealed his lungs were "extremely wet," a sign of opiates or narcotics overdose, Keegan said. Toxicology tests confirmed it was methadone.
During a cross-examination of Weichbrod on Friday afternoon, defense attorney Jane Ellen Bucher asked Weichbrod for the names of all the inmates housed with Peotter between his booking Sept. 27, 2012, and his death the following Jan. 30.
Weichbrod listed dozens of names. Peotter was moved often between cellblocks because other inmates would tease him, Weichbrod said. It is normal for inmates to be moved around as much as Peotter was, he said.
Under Bucher's cross-examination, Keegan said he interviewed just three of Peotter's prior cellmates.
Bucher argued that the evidence against Mitchell is entirely circumstantial and the testimony from his nephew is unreliable.
"We do not have competent evidence to show the source of the methadone. We have some testimony from an admitted drug addict, and that is self-serving," she said.
But Judge Thomas Vale said he's binding the case over for trial because the evidence presented during the preliminary hearing offers sufficient "probable cause" that a felony or felonies occurred. It will be the prosecution's job later to present evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"There may be circumstantial evidence, but it certainly flows to a logical conclusion," Vale said.
Mitchell walked into the courtroom but was provided a wheelchair to sit in for the duration of the three-hour hearing, for reasons Bucher would not explain to the Times. A deputy unshackled one of Mitchell's hands so he could take notes, which he did frequently during the hearing.
During a mid-afternoon break, the deputy gave Mitchell an inhaler to use, then took it back and stored it in a Ziploc bag.
The 44-year-old Montello man appeared in Green County Circuit Court Friday afternoon for the last of three preliminary hearings. He faces a Class C felony charge of first-degree reckless homicide, a Class D felony charge of intentionally contributing to the delinquency of a minor and a Class I felony charge of delivering illegal articles to an inmate. He allegedly smuggled tobacco and methadone into the jail.
If convicted and punished to the full extent of the law, he faces more than 40 years imprisonment.
Mitchell's preliminary hearing began April 13, continued April 20 and ended Friday. The court heard testimony from the lead detective on the case, the jail administrator, and Mitchell's nephew, who says his uncle admitted to supplying the teen with methadone. Mitchell denies this accusation.
Also presented as evidence were autopsy results, medical records for Mitchell and hours of surveillance video from the cellblock that Mitchell shared for one day and two nights with Kyle S. Peotter, 17, at the end of January 2013.
A timeline emerged for the days leading up to Peotter's death from the evidence and testimony presented in court.
On Jan. 23, Mitchell purchased methadone with a prescription at the Monroe Clinic pharmacy. Methadone is a synthetic opiate used to treat severe chronic pain and heroin dependence. Mitchell's prescription was for chronic neck and back pain.
On Jan. 24, Mitchell was hospitalized for a purported drug overdose, after an ambulance was called to a Monroe-area motel for him, according to Detective Larry Keegan of the Monroe Police Department.
On Jan. 28, Mitchell turned himself in at the jail. He was patted down but not strip-searched, according to Lt. Paul Weichbrod, the jail administrator. It is jail policy and state law that probation prisoners and non-sentenced prisoners are not strip-searched. He was allowed to have an inhaler for his asthma while in jail.
Mitchell, however, disputes how jailers searched him. He says he was strip-searched.
That evening, Mitchell was put in Cellblock B with Peotter. They were the only two inmates in the cellblock.
"There was no sleep for either inmate all night," according to Weichbrod's minute-by-minute description of video surveillance. Instead, the video shows them staying up all night, appearing to pass something back and forth in the pages of a book and crouch repeatedly over a low shelf to snort a substance.
At one point, Weichbrod wrote in his report, Mitchell and Peotter stripped down to their underwear and appear to be hot and sweating profusely. They rubbed their noses repeatedly.
The next day, Jan. 29, the video shows Peotter drinking lots of water and bending over the toilet to vomit, again and again. That evening around 6 p.m., he appears to take a pill.
About a quarter after 10 that night, Weichbrod notes that Peotter, in bed at this point, kicks his legs under the blanket. It would be Peotter's last visible movement.
The next morning, Jan. 30, "Mitchell yelled that breakfast was ready, and Kyle Peotter did not respond," Weichbrod wrote in his report. Mitchell shook Peotter, then appears to retrieve something from inside Peotter's mattress. He pushes the emergency button to alert jailers of Peotter's death, then goes into his cell and flushes something down his toilet.
An autopsy of Peotter revealed his lungs were "extremely wet," a sign of opiates or narcotics overdose, Keegan said. Toxicology tests confirmed it was methadone.
During a cross-examination of Weichbrod on Friday afternoon, defense attorney Jane Ellen Bucher asked Weichbrod for the names of all the inmates housed with Peotter between his booking Sept. 27, 2012, and his death the following Jan. 30.
Weichbrod listed dozens of names. Peotter was moved often between cellblocks because other inmates would tease him, Weichbrod said. It is normal for inmates to be moved around as much as Peotter was, he said.
Under Bucher's cross-examination, Keegan said he interviewed just three of Peotter's prior cellmates.
Bucher argued that the evidence against Mitchell is entirely circumstantial and the testimony from his nephew is unreliable.
"We do not have competent evidence to show the source of the methadone. We have some testimony from an admitted drug addict, and that is self-serving," she said.
But Judge Thomas Vale said he's binding the case over for trial because the evidence presented during the preliminary hearing offers sufficient "probable cause" that a felony or felonies occurred. It will be the prosecution's job later to present evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt."
"There may be circumstantial evidence, but it certainly flows to a logical conclusion," Vale said.
Mitchell walked into the courtroom but was provided a wheelchair to sit in for the duration of the three-hour hearing, for reasons Bucher would not explain to the Times. A deputy unshackled one of Mitchell's hands so he could take notes, which he did frequently during the hearing.
During a mid-afternoon break, the deputy gave Mitchell an inhaler to use, then took it back and stored it in a Ziploc bag.