Grave Injustice:.....Bria was 19 when he died from a cocaine and heroin overdose after a party was held in the basement of his Hollow Wood Lane home in 2004. Four of Bria's friends were named in the suit, including Jason Cunningham, Savannah Lamotte, Megan Caron and Katie Hanscom, all of Greenwich.
The specifics of the settlement were not released Thursday, but the attorney for the Brias, Daniel Benjamin of Stamford, said the parents will receive a six-figure settlement from the insurance companies representing Caron and Cunningham....
While The Attorneys For The Heartless
Rich Brats Had Little Or Nothing To Say
.....Attorney Eugene Riccio of Greenwich did not disclose how much Caron, his client, will be paying through her insurance company, but said he was pleased the case is over.....
.....Attorney Stephen Walko, of Stamford, who represents Cunningham, did not return a call for comment......
However, Next Time That Low Life And Druggies Who Watch A Boy Die Instead Of Calling 911 Will Not Get Treated With The Kid Gloves
......While police never charged any of the teens who attended the party with a crime immediately following the death, the case was reopened in 2008 when Lamotte, 23, and Cunningham, 24, were charged with possession of a narcotic -- a move many believe stemmed from testimony given during the civil case. Police did not charge Hanscom and Caron.
Benjamin said the case also helped change the way police and prosecutors in the state view fatal overdose case.
"We changed the law in the state of Connecticut," said Benjamin.
According to Benjamin, the judge said providers of illegal drugs bear responsibility for death by overdose because ordinary people should know about the dangers....
They Watched A Boy Die Instead Of Picking Up The Phone
Never Forget That These Heartless SOB's (Jason Cunningham, Savannah Lamotte, Megan Caron and Katie Hanscom) Refused To Call 911 For A Dying Boy And Cleaned Up The Crime Scene Before Letting The Mother Find A Dead Son In His Bed The Next Morning.
Cunningham pleaded guilty to the possession of narcotics charge on April 23 after being denied entrance into a drug-intervention program. He received three years probation. Lamotte is pursuing an intervention program through the court. She was denied entrance into a drug-education program earlier this year after a judge ruled the case was too serious to offer her or Cunningham the program.
The Insurance Payment Doesn't Settle Things Fair And Justly.
John Bria's Mother Would Gladly Give Everything She Has Got And Then Some If She Could Just Hold Her Precious Son One More Time.
These Heartless Killers Are Still Continue To Walk The Streets Without Ever Even Having To Sit In A Jail Cell And Contemplate How They Ripped Apart The Bria Family.
But The Dirty Little Secret In Greenwich Is That The Working Class And Especially The Poor In Byram And Western Greenwich Rarely Get Justice.
Go to Stamford Superior Court and you can see one of the greatest injustices against the poor members of Greenwich society played out over and over.
You'll see poor Greenwich residents - young black and Latino men, mostly - meeting their Public Defender attorneys for the first time just minutes before they stand before the judge and enter a plea that can effect the rest of their lives.
It is a horrific miscarriage of justice. Indigent defendants from Western Greenwich arrive at the bar of justice with legal assistance that is rushed, cursory, inadequate or nonexistent - a situation that is blatantly unconstitutional.
In the landmark 1963 case of Gideon vs. Wainwright, the Supreme Court ruled that all defendants charged with a crime have the right to a lawyer. In Stamford and Norwalk court rooms, the rights of less fortunate Greenwich residents are violated on a daily basis.
Many times high bails are set.
Remember the Byram balloon throwing teenager
who got a $50,000 bail.
Often times Greenwich Police officers look the other way and let the rich members of Greenwich society go, while slapping cuffs on those of less means.
Many poor Western Greenwich residents charged with minor infractions can spend up to three months in the Bridgeport jail, because they can't make these high bail amounts. They frantically try to contact a legal aid attorney who are so busy that they can not met with them outside of open court.
Most cases of the poor of Byram are
disposed of by routine guilty pleas.
In most of these cases there had been no investigation, no witness interviews and no meaningful conversation about legal strategy.
Nothing short of major, far-reaching reform can ensure that Connecticut meets its constitutional and statutory obligations to provide quality representation to every indigent Town of Greenwich person accused of a crime or other offense.
The reason it's a crisis is that everybody looks the other way.
Justice demands that we stop looking away.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
PLEASE SEE:
More On John J. Bria's Death:
MORE:
04/24/09 WHERE"S THE JUSTICE? Jason Cunningham Gets Probation As Byram Teenager John Bria Lies In His Cold Grave
04/25/09 Reader Submitted Comments And Correction
04/25/09 Reader Submitted Comments And Correction
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