A Long Island father has been sentenced to five to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the 2024 fatal overdose of his 14-month-old son, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Wilkens Adonis, 39, admitted to exposing the toddler, Joseph Adonis, to a “deadly cocktail of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine,” according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
The incident occurred at Adonis’ Holbrook home on Jan. 3, 2024, after Suffolk police responded to reports of an unresponsive child.
When first responders arrived at the residence, they found Adonis, his girlfriend, Daryllee Leibrock, and the unresponsive boy in the couple’s bedroom.
The young victim was rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause of death was acute mixed drug intoxication from heroin, cocaine and fentanyl.
Detectives with the Suffolk County Narcotics Section were called in to assist in the investigation after police found narcotics and drug paraphernalia in the bedroom where the child was found.
After executing a search warrant at the apartment, authorities found more than one-eighth ounce of a heroin-fentanyl mixture, more than one-eighth ounce of cocaine, alprazolam, methadone, drug packaging materials and digital scales, officials said.
Additionally, detectives also recovered an electronic stun gun, a loaded shotgun and a rifle — all “unsecured and easily accessible to the defendants’ children,” prosecutors said.
The couple’s 11-year-old child also lived in the same apartment.
Both Adonis and Leibrock were arrested three weeks later and indicted for manslaughter and related charges for recklessly causing the drug overdose death of their child.
Adonis pleaded guilty to manslaughter, drug possession and child endangerment on March 17, 2025, telling the court he took “full responsibility for everything that happened.”
Leibrock has pleaded not guilty, according to online court records. She is due back in court on May 14.
