Drug death case headed to trial

Foster Mudget with his attorney, Harold Emelander.

By Allison Scarbrough. OCP Editor.

HART — The case of drugs causing death against a 24-year-old Hart man, who is currently serving time in prison for an unrelated conviction, is set for trial in 27th Circuit Court, Jan. 13-15.

Foster Lewis Mudget appeared in court Monday, Oct. 26, with his attorney Harold Emelander, who made a motion to quash his client’s bind over to circuit court from district court.

Judge Anthony A. Monton ruled that there is “sufficient evidence” that the case was bound over to circuit court and that it should move forward.

Emelander submitted case law, arguing that Mudget did not know he gave Annette Conkle, 46, of Hart, fentanyl, which caused her death. “The defendant has to have specific knowledge of what substance he delivered,” Emelander said.

Oceana County Prosecutor Joseph Bizon has seven days to respond, and Monton will also review the case law.

A final status conference is set for Dec. 21 at 9 a.m. Mudget was remanded to prison.

He was arraigned last June on two counts of delivery of a controlled substance causing death. The charges stem from Conkle’s death last October “who had overdosed and ultimately died as a result of the overdose,” a State, Sheriffs’, Chiefs’ Enforcement of Narcotics Team (SSCENT) press release stated. “In the fall of 2014, members of the Hart City Police Department responded to an address in the 200 block of Dryden. On scene, they located the woman who had overdosed.”

According to the Offender Tracking Information System (OTIS), Mudget is lodged in the West Shoreline Correctional Facility in Muskegon Heights, serving a 13-month to five-year sentence for an organized retail crime act violation conviction in Muskegon County. His earliest release date is April 18, 2016.