Westmoreland among counties with most drug delivery resulting in death prosecutions

More drug dealers implicated in fatal overdoses are being prosecuted in Westmoreland County than in any other county is Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Statistics released in December by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts revealed that 6.2% of all drug delivery resulting in death cases brought by state prosecutors since 2017 were filed in Westmoreland County.

The 71 cases through the end of 2021 represents the fourth highest in the state, behind only Lancaster, Monroe and York counties.

The current version of the state’s drug delivery resulting in death law has been on the books for more than a decade and has been used in the past five years to prosecute 1,141 cases in Pennsylvania. Specifically, it applies in cases were police contend a person sells, dispenses, delivers or provides an illegal substance that is the cause of a fatal overdose.

In Westmoreland County, prosecutors filed drug delivery resulting in death charges 16 times in 2021.

Allegheny County prosecutors filed just one case in 2021 and none in 2020. Since 2017, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala’s office filed drug delivery resulting in death charges in just 16 cases, according to state court records.

Prosecutors in Armstrong County filed charges in 10 cases, while 28 were filed in Beaver, nine in Butler, 17 in Fayette, two in Indiana and 30 in Washington counties over the past five years.

Fatal overdoses had been on the rise for more than a decade in Westmoreland, with a record 193 deaths reported in 2017. After two years of declines, overdoses started to increase again in 2020, when 168 deaths were reported.

As of Nov. 1, the county had 68 reported overdoses in 2022, with 25 cases likely to be added to the total after toxicology testing is completed, according to the coroner’s office.

Westmoreland County’s drug delivery resulting in death prosecutions occurred during the tenure of former District Attorney John Peck.

Statistics for drug delivery resulting in death prosecutions for 2022 under new District Attorney Nicole Ziccarelli were not immediately available.

Ziccarelli did not respond to requests for comment.

Tim Phillips, executive director of Westmoreland County’s Drug Task Force, questioned the impact that drug delivery resulting in death prosecutions have had on the ongoing addiction epidemic.

“I’m not sure how effective it has been,” Phillips said. “I don’t know if it deters anybody. People who use are still going to use.”

Phillips suggested education and diversionary efforts such as the county’s drug court program might be a better option to curb the ongoing addiction epidemic.

“We can’t afford to arrest our way out of this. I wonder if we are going about this the wrong way,” Phillips said.