Man gets 6 years after leaving friend who died of overdose

The tragic case of Brian Denofrio concluded in a Rolling Meadows courtroom Thursday when Brad Jurek, who authorities say injected the victim with the heroin that killed him, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of delivery a controlled substance.

"The sentence of this court in this very tragic case is six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections," said Judge Thomas Fecarotta to the courtroom, which included Jurek family members as well as Denofrio's father John and mother Fran.

"I'm satisfied with the sentence," said John Denofrio, who described his son as a wonderful child and a decent human being.

Jurek, of the 100 block of Oakwood Lane, in Bartlett, requested, and the court granted, drug abuse counseling as part of his sentence.

Police discovered Denofrio's body on April 16, 2008, in the back seat of his car, which was parked in the parking lot of a Hanover Park White Castle. According to Assistant State's Attorney Mike Gerber, the 27-year-old Elgin man had driven himself and Jurek into Chicago to buy heroin. Jurek cooked the heroin using a spoon he found in the car, and helped Denofrio inject it. On the ride back to the suburbs, Denofrio became incoherent and eventually lost consciousness, said Gerber. Thinking Denofrio had passed out, Jurek placed him in the back seat of the car and called his mother, a registered nurse, to pick him up at the restaurant. The two left, leaving Denofrio in the car where police found him.

Police initially charged Jurek, 26, with homicide in the Elgin man's fatal overdose last year. Jurek was charged under what is known as "Kelly's Law" after Kelley Baker, a 23-year-old Rolling Meadows woman who died of an ecstasy overdose in 1999. The 2002 law allows a defendant to be charged with a homicide if a victim overdoses on drugs the defendant supplied.

Asked about how he wanted people to remember his son, John Denofrio became emotional. He handed the Daily Herald a prepared statement referencing the "unbearable" loss of a child, which he described as "a pain no one can imagine, unless you are a member of this club that no one wants to be in."

In the statement directed at Jurek and his mother, he referred to a fire two years ago at his son's house.

Brian "fought with the fireman over going back into that house to save his cats, living creatures that he was not going to stand by and let die," the statement read.

"Those cats meant more to him..." said John Denofrio, his voice trailing off.

"Brad walked away and left (Brian) there," he said, echoing his statement in which he urges Jurek to remember Brian.

"I want you to see Brian's face," he wrote, "the look only you know, because you were there when he needed your help and you just walked away."