A judge in a court in Ohio broke new ground and employed a new tool in the U.S.’s legal and government response to the deadly illicit fentanyl epidemic with her Aug. 9 ruling that a Chinese drug cartel pay $18 million to the family of a man who fatally overdosed on the drug that officials tracked back to the cartel.
Thomas “Tommy” Rauh was 37 years old and battling addiction when he injected a lethal combination of heroin laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, in 2015.
Mr. Rauh bought the drug from an Akron dealer who purchased it from the Zheng drug cartel. The dealer was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Mr. Rauh’s father, James Rauh, filed the lawsuit in 2020 in Summit County Common Pleas Court in Akron, Ohio. Assisting the father in the lawsuit is the Cleveland-based international law firm Spangenberg Shipley & Liber, which is working on the case on a contingency basis.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a 43-count indictment against the Zheng drug cartel.
Also, that year, officials traveled to China to prosecute the Zhengs for murder. After a three-day trial in a Chinese court, it took court officials 15 minutes to let the Zhengs go free.
Mr. Rauh started down the path to the overdose that killed him by becoming addicted to the prescription painkillers he took to alleviate the pain he was suffering from dental work and a rollerblading accident.
“Tommy was a wonderful man; he had great abilities, a wonderful work ethic,” said his father in an interview with Fox News. “He loved his family, loved his friends. Just a wonderful guy.”
The father explained that his family is disposed to substance abuse and that “alcoholism runs in the family, in some respect.”
The award broke down into $15 million for the wrongful death claim, $1 million for the survivorship claim, and $2 million for punitive damages.
Summit County Court Magistrate Judge Kandi S. O’Connor, who handed down the judgment, said that a higher amount for punitive damages was warranted, but Ohio law prevented her from awarding any more in this area than she did.
“After a review of the testimony and evidence presented, this Court finds that Defendants are responsible and liable for the wrongful death of Tommy Rauh. The Court further finds that the Defendants acted with conscious disregard and malice for their actions in relation to the wrongful death of Rauh.”
National Threat
Fentanyl overdoses are the number one cause of death among Americans aged 18 through 49.“This material is being brought into the United States in large quantities and being saved and stored in specific areas,” said James Rauh. “This is a national security threat of epic proportions.”
While illicit fentanyl is shipped directly from China to the United States, most of the drug is first made by cartels in Mexico from precursor ingredients originating from China.
The destructive capacity of fentanyl, which comes in liquid and powdered form, results in large part from the drug being highly addictive and 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
With the potency being so high, even a few specks of powdered fentanyl are enough to kill. Ingesting 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal, meaning 1 gram—about the same as a paper clip—could contain 500 lethal doses.
Authorities estimated in 2018 that the Zheng drug cartel was producing 18 metric tons of fentanyl a week.
Because fentanyl is so addictive, and such a tiny amount is so powerful, which makes it easy to conceal, drug dealers mix it into other drugs they sell—including cocaine, marijuana, meth, and heroin—to get their customers dependent and needing more which results in steady business, from those who survive.
The Rauh family has channeled pain, anguish, and grief into combating the fentanyl scourge.
The family founded Families Against Fentanyl, a nonprofit organization that pursues a national integrated campaign that includes government affairs and filing of legislation, a petition, research, media relations, building an official coalition, and a billboard campaign.
Families Against Fentanyl and its work have been featured on many national news outlets.
Included in and fundamental to the work of Families Against Fentanyl is an effort to get fentanyl officially recognized by the federal government as a “weapon of mass destruction,” a designation that the organization says will “empower the U.S. to cut off the supply of this poison before it reaches our borders.”
Speaking to the nature of the fentanyl epidemic and its impact on America, James Ruah said: “This is a well-planned attack that’s been going on for some time.”
He also said that if any money were paid on the lawsuit, it “could be used against these cartels and this blight that’s attacking the United States.”
