An arrest warrant with a $50,000 bond was issued Thursday for a 30-year-old Racine woman charged in the drug overdose death of a man earlier this year.
Jana L. Mehevic was charged by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office with a felony count of first-degree reckless homicide as a party to a crime, which carries a $100,000 fine and 40 years in prison. Mehevic also is charged with two felony counts of manufacturing/delivering cocaine and a felony count of delivery of schedule I or II narcotics.
The other three felonies carry a total fine of $100,000 and 35 years in prison.
Mehevic, who also faces a number of criminal charges in a separate Racine County case, was scheduled for an initial appearance Thursday but failed to appear, which led to the warrant.
A co-defendant in the current case, Matthew Halkowitz, 36, Racine, is charged with a felony count of maintaining a drug trafficking place and a misdemeanor count of possession of drug paraphernalia. He is due back in court for a status hearing July 27 at 9 a.m.
According to the criminal complaint:
Officers with the Racine Police Department were dispatched on Feb. 18 to 913 Williams St. When they arrived, a rescue squad was already at the scene trying to revive a male subject with no success. Next to the man’s body, police found an uncapped needle and a glass pipe charred at both ends, along with a small paper bindle with a white rock-like substance and a cell phone.
The man, whose name was redacted in the complaint, was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner ruled his cause of death as acute mixed drug intoxication of cocaine and fentanyl.
Text messages between the man and Mehevic showed that on Feb. 17 and 18, she and Halkowitz went to Milwaukee to buy drugs for him. Mehevic stated they got crack cocaine from the deceased and denied getting drugs for him.
Mehevic admitted she goes to Milwaukee to buy drugs for herself. Halkowitz told police the deceased gave him crack cocaine. Halkowitz further stated the deceased asked him and Mehevic to get crack cocaine, which they did.
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