Judge tosses manslaughter charges in case against alleged drug dealer

A Suffolk County Supreme Court judge has dismissed manslaughter charges against an alleged Greenport drug dealer who was arrested in August in connection with fatal overdoses on the East End.

Judge John B. Collins, in a decision handed down late last month, said there was not enough evidence that Lavain Creighton, 52, recklessly caused the deaths of Swainson Brown and Matthew Lapiana. He dismissed the manslaughter charges, explaining that case law dictated that knowing there was a powerful opiate in a drug he sold did not mean Creighton knew there was a risk of death beyond the general danger of taking drugs.

“The people did not present legally sufficient evidence to demonstrate whether defendant was aware of and consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that death would result from his alleged actions of selling cocaine mixed with fluro-fentanyl to decedents,” Collins wrote in the March 29 decision.

In September, Creighton pleaded not guilty to a 16-count indictment in connection with the Aug. 13 overdoses of what prosecutors said was cocaine mixed with a fentanyl analog. He still faces 14 drug-sales charges. 

Prosecutors at the time said two manslaughter charges were lodged because Creighton showed reckless intent when he sold the drugs to two of the overdose victims after another victim allegedly texted Creighton to warn him of the drug's effects and the suspicion that the cocaine was laced with another substance.

Creighton’s attorney Lane Bubka of Riverhead lauded the judge’s decision in a statement and said it supported the defense’s position that Creighton was innocent of the charges.

Although he and his client are "truly saddened over the loss of the lives associated with his case, we have maintained that Mr. Creighton was not guilty of manslaughter,” Bubka said in the statement. 

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, who on the campaign trail in 2021 criticized his predecessor Timothy Sini’s handling of the case, did not immediately comment on the charge being dropped.

Creighton still faces significant prison time if convicted on the remaining 14 charges, all Class B felonies that carry sentences of up to 25 years. He remains in the Suffolk County Jail in Riverside and is due back in court April 28.

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.