FARMINGTON — Defense attorneys disputed the credibility of the state’s medical evidence Monday morning at the sentencing hearing of four people connected to a Farmington woman’s drug overdose death last year.
Roy Gordon, 43, Seth Gordon, 23, Terry Oliver, 54, and Eric Barnes, 28, all had pleaded guilty previously to furnishing the morphine to Marilyn Rider, 52, who died in November 2012.
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The attorneys for the four questioned the state’s deputy medical examiner on why an autopsy was not performed and on how credible it was for the examiner to attribute chronic lung disease aggravated by morphine as the official cause of death.
The attorneys also noted that Dr. Mark Flomenbaum had only worked for the state for four days when he originally reviewed the case in January.
Justice Michaela Murphy was expected to hand down a sentence Monday.
The four defendants pleaded guilty in exchange for a two-year sentencing cap for the crime. Furnishing scheduled drugs is a Class C crime and otherwise punishable by up to five years in prison.
Rider died after a morphine overdose at her boyfriend’s birthday party.
Kaitlin Schroeder can be contacted at 861-9252 or at: kschroeder@centralmaine.com
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