Ocean County officials reported that on May 27, Curtis Geathers, 37, of Barnegat, pled guilty before the Honorable Rochelle Gizinski, J.S.C., to Manslaughter in connection with the death of a female victim that occurred in Point Pleasant Borough on January 10, 2019.
Officials said on January 10, 2019, officers from the Point Pleasant Borough Police Department were dispatched to a local residence for a report of an unresponsive female.
The female was transported to Hackensack Meridian Ocean University Medical Center in Brick Township, where she died on January 12, 2019.
A subsequent investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics Strike Force, and Point Pleasant Borough Police Department, revealed that Geathers was the supplier of heroin and fentanyl that was distributed to the victim on January 10, 2019.
A toxicology report received by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the cause of the victim’s death to be Acetyl Fentanyl Toxicity.
At the time of his sentencing on July 22, 2022, the State will recommend a sentence of four years at New Jersey State Prison (N.J.S.P.), subject to the No Early Release Act NRN 2C:43-7.2. Geathers also pled guilty to an unrelated charge of Possession of Fentanyl with Intent to Distribute in violation of N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5a(1) and N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5b(5), for which the State will be recommending a sentence of five years N.J.S.P. The sentences are to run concurrently.
This plea agreement was entered into in consultation with - and with the approval of - the victim’s family. On February 7, 2019, Geathers was arrested by Detectives from the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotics Strike Force, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit, and Berkeley Township Police Department.
He has been lodged in the Ocean County Jail since his arrest.