A man from Great Neck pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide after he allegedly supplied drugs to two people, including his girlfriend, who later died of drug overdoses, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Wednesday, Nov. 4.
Justin Lum pleaded guilty on Monday, Nov. 2, to a drug possession charge in addition to criminally negligent homicide. He faces between three and six years in prison.
On April 27, 2017, Lum provided his girlfriend Patricia Collado with heroin while the two of them watched a movie at a College Point movie theater, according to the charges. After leaving the theater, the two used heroin inside a parked car, which caused Collado to lose consciousness, according to Katz.
After Lam called 911, EMS personnel arrived to administer Naloxone to Collado, before taking her to a nearby hospital.
After being discharged from the hospital around 11 p.m., Collado and Lum went to Lum’s grandfather’s house in Flushing, where the couple again used heroin, Katz said. Collado quickly went into cardiac arrest but this time, Lum didn’t call for medical attention. Instead he attempted to provide her with medical care himself.
Lum woke up the next morning around 8 a.m. to find Collado unconscious next to him, according to Katz. EMS personnel arrived and pronounced Collado dead at the scene. It was later found that she died from acute intoxication to the combined effects of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine, according to Katz.
A little less than a year later, on March 1, 2018, Lum sold heroin to Bayside resident Calvin Brown, according to charges. Brown used the heroin inside Lum’s home and immediately began to have a medical emergency. Lum called 911 and Brown was taken to a nearby hospital where he was treated and released.
Three days after being released from the hospital, on March 9, Brown again bought heroin from Lum, the charges state.
The next day, Brown’s mother found him dead in their home. An autopsy showed Brown had died from acute intoxication from the combined effects of heroin, Xanax, diazepam and phenobarbital.
Lum will return to court for sentencing on Jan. 13, 2021.
