Two charged in former beauty queen's OD
NEW YORK - Two men have been charged with supplying the cocaine that killed a former South Jersey beauty queen in New York last year.
The suspects allegedly watched Kiersten Rickenbach Cerveny overdose, then carried the woman — a Washington Township native who became a Long Island dermatologist — to the lobby of an apartment building in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood in October 2015, authorities said.
More: Former beauty queen found dead
Cerveny, a 38-year-old mother of three young children, was pronounced dead a short time after being found unconscious at the West 16th Street building.
Her death followed a night of partying and drug use, according to a federal complaint filed against the suspects, James “Pepsi” Holder and Marc Henry Johnson. The men are Manhattan residents.
Authorities allege Holder, 60, was a longtime drug dealer and Johnson, 54, was his friend and customer.
Holder is charged with conspiring to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine.
Johnson is charged with attempting to distribute cocaine and acting as an accessory after the fact in relation to the conspiracy charge against Holder.
In a statement, New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratt said the alleged treatment of Cerveny was “unimaginable.” He said the men “dragged” the woman downstairs from Holder’s third-floor walk-up apartment.
Johnson called 911 but did not give his name, provided no information about Cerveny and left the scene after EMTs arrived, the complaint said.
A surveillance camera showed Holder walking away from the building.
The arrests tell drug suppliers “that the consequences of their actions affect them as well as the families of drug users,” said James J. Hunt, Special Agent in Charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Manhattan.
According to the complaint, Johnson texted Holder on the night of Oct. 3 and early-morning hours of Oct. 4, 2015, saying he might stop by for a pick-up. It says Johnson, an HBO producer, had met up with Cerveny at a bar earlier in the night, and the two took a cab to Holder’s apartment building around 4:30 a.m.
Cerveny was found unconscious in the vestibule around 8:30 a.m. A medical examiner ruled later that she had died from acute cocaine and alcohol intoxication.
Cerveny, a Manhasset resident, had been valedictorian at Washington Township High School in 1995, the same year she was crowned America's Junior Miss.
A ceremony after the pageant featured a red-carpet welcome at Washington Township’s municipal building. Cerveny, then 17, “gracefully glided (past) flashing cameras, TV lights and ogling fans to make her triumphant entrance," a Courier-Post account said at the time.
Cerveny used scholarship winnings from the pageant to attend Duke University, where she graduated magna cum laude. She met her husband, also a dermatologist, during medical school in Louisiana.
Jim Walsh; (856) 486-2646; jwalsh@gannettnj.com