Pennsylvania men sold their friend heroin and abandoned him outside a Montco hospital to die of an overdose, DA says

Two men have been charged with drug offenses after they waited three hours to get help for a friend who overdosed on heroin they sold him, dumping him in a secluded area outside a Montgomery County hospital and then plotting ways to avoid police, prosecutors said Thursday.

Joshua Benner, 28, of Telford, and Ronald Shock, 35, of Boyertown, both face charges of drug delivery resulting in death, recklessly endangering another person, and related offenses in the death of Ramon Morales, 35. Police did not disclose where he lived.

Both men remain in custody, in lieu of bail: $99,000 for Benner and $250,000 for Shock.

Shock’s attorney, John I. McMahon Jr., described the case as an “accidental overdose death” and said law enforcement’s efforts to stem the sale of fentanyl and other powerful narcotics in local communities have failed.

“Situations like these only compound the tragedy, all based on a fallacious law enforcement argument of deterrence,” McMahon said. “These cases are treated as if someone shot a loaded gun at the decedent, when the defendant could’ve been just as easily the one who overdosed himself or herself.”

There was no indication Benner had hired an attorney.

The two men and Morales were using heroin laced with fentanyl in Shock’s apartment on the night of May 6, according to the affidavit of probable cause for their arrest.

Through interviews with friends of Benner’s, detectives learned that he often visits “Needle Park” — the colloquial name for McPherson Square in the Kensington section of Philadelphia — to buy heroin, and had recently begun buying larger quantities to sell to others, the affidavit said.

About 11:30 p.m., Morales, who had been snorting heroin, passed out in Shock’s living room and was unresponsive, according to the affidavit. Panicking, Benner and Shock tried to rouse him by putting him in the shower and turning the water on, but it didn’t work, the affidavit said.

As they struggled with what to do that night, their words were recorded — seemingly accidentally — on Benner’s smartphone, the affidavit said. In the hours-long recording, Benner and Shock can be heard cleaning the apartment while saying they didn’t want to call the police because they had outstanding warrants for violating probation in previous unrelated drug cases.

“If [this] gets out, we’re the bad people but we didn’t make him do drugs,” Benner said in the recording, according to the affidavit. At one point, Benner told Shock that they were “looking at state time for this.”

Eventually, the two decided to drive Morales to Pottstown Hospital, where they left him on a grassy berm in the parking lot. Pottstown police officers who responded to the scene the next morning found Morales, but were unable to identify him until May 9, when a friend reported him missing.

Through surveillance footage from the hospital, police traced the vehicle to Benner, and arrested him days later on an outstanding probation-violation warrant. He was taken into custody outside Shock’s apartment, where Morales’ van was still parked. There were empty bags of heroin and cocaine inside the car, the affidavit said.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, in a statement Thursday, derided the men’s actions.

“Ramon Morales died from these deadly drugs that were sold to him by a dealer and then their casual disregard for his life caused him to suffer and die right in front of these two defendants while they did nothing,” Steele said.