Suspect arrested in Long Beach man's death

Patti Michelman remembered Robert Michalski as her brother's childhood friend, a cute 9-year-old boy who played at their house and grew up with her younger sibling.

And that, she said, makes the circumstances around her brother's death so painful.

Robbie Michelman died more than a year ago after Michalski injected him with a fatal dose of heroin, Long Beach police said Saturday.

Michalski, 40, of Virginia Beach, Va., was arrested at 9:45 p.m. Friday in Massapequa Park and charged with second-degree manslaughter, police said.

"I knew him [Michalski] as a kid and it kills me inside that he left my brother and didn't try to help him," Patti Michelman, 43, of Long Beach said, as she cried. "I want to ask him why."

The arrest came after an extensive investigation by the Long Beach police and Nassau County homicide squad detectives. Michalski injected Michelman with heroin at Michelman's Long Beach home on Feb. 3, 2010, police said. He was taken to the hospital, where he later was pronounced dead.

"The death was the result of a reckless act," said Long Beach Deputy Insp. Bruce Meyer.

Michalski, who was also charged with criminal injection of a narcotic drug, was arraigned Saturday and ordered held without bail.

Michalski has a criminal record that includes guilty pleas to third-degree assault and operating a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol for offenses in 1999. He also pleaded guilty to third-degree assault for a 1993 incident.

When the Michelman family learned the details surrounding Robbie Michelman's death, they knew that someone else was involved, relatives said.

While Robbie Michelman struggled throughout his life with alcoholism, he didn't use heroin and was terrified of needles, Patti Michelman said.

The family learned from doctors and police that Michelman was injected in his left arm, relatives said. But he was lefthanded. "I knew he couldn't do it himself," Patti Michelman said.

Robbie Michelman possessed a natural athletic ability and was good at just about everything from skate boarding to riding a unicycle, said his uncle, Harold Michelman.

Robbie Michelman worked at his uncle's glass business, Surf Glass, and helped install windows on a building at Ground Zero, where the project manager "had nothing but praise for him," his uncle said.

And he had a big heart, his sister said. "Anyone who needed a place to live and money and food, they all came to him," she said. "He was just my baby brother."