Haunting video has revealed a college student’s final moments before he collapsed and died while celebrating his graduation at a casino in Connecticut.
Ethan Bherwani, 22, from Long Island, was with two friends at the Mohegan Sun casino in May 2021 when he made the devastating decision to purchase cocaine from a dealer in the bathroom.
Unbeknown to him the cocaine was laced with the lethal drug fentanyl, which caused him to keel over at the blackjack table just moments later.
Surveillance footage showed him wearing a hat and face mask while playing cards before he fell unconscious and collapsed onto the floor where he remained motionless.
His friends were not there as they had already gone to bed. Other people can be seen glancing over at him but continued to play cards. Two other bystanders then run over to him to attempt to provide aid but appear to be waved away by a staff member. It took five minutes for someone to call for an EMT and 11 minutes before paramedics arrived and perform life-saving measures.
Ethan was eventually transported to hospital but died nine days later on May 27, 2021 – just days before his graduation ceremony at Baruch College in New York.
His heartbroken father, Kamal Bherwani, 55, has spent the last three years fighting for justice after it emerged the drug dealer who sold his son the deadly cocaine, Jerrard Santiago, was prolific in the area and had been banned from the casino years earlier.
Haunting video has revealed a college student’s final moments before he collapsed and died while celebrating his graduation at a casino in Connecticut
Ethan Bherwani, 22, died from an accidental fentanyl overdose. This photo was taken just weeks before his May 2021 death
Ethan, who was gifted in math and science, and studied business journalism at college was supposed to be heading to law school after graduation.
But his father Kamal said: ‘We knew there was no hope once the doctor’s told us that he was brain dead’.
He later ‘gave the gift of life to three people’ by donating his organs, he added.
After his son’s death, Ethan’s father, a global businessman who worked under former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, began investigating the events that led to his son’s death.
It was during these inquiries that he learned Santiago, 44, was a prolific drug dealer with a criminal past who had been permanently banned from the Mohegan Sun casino for violent behavior in 2017.
At that time, Mohegan Sun police had slapped Santiago with a trespassing notice and was told that if he returned to the casino he would be arrested.
However, Santiago managed to get through casino security on seven occasions between 2020 and 2022, according to a police affidavit.
Records showed three visits in 2020, two in 2021 – including the day Ethan died – and two more in 2022.
‘Mohegan Sun puts money before the safety of their patrons. These are dates the Mohegan Sun police reported but there are probably dozens of others,’ Kamal said.
He also revealed that when Mohegan Sun PD stopped Santiago in the casino after Ethan collapsed the drug dealer claimed he did not know who he was.
‘They never ran his ID. They could have arrested him right than and there and we would have never had to go through the last three years,’ Kamal said.
It took nearly two years for Santiago to finally be arrested on March 30, 2023.
Describing how Santiago was busted, Kamal explained that a trusted acquaintance of the dealer who was in prison became an informant in exchange for leniency.
‘They set up a car with audio and video surveillance and orchestrated two drug buys,’ he said.
Investigators made a controlled purchase of fentanyl and heroin from Santiago on February 3, 2023, and again on February 14, 2023 for fentanyl and cocaine.
Kamal added: ‘The Drug Enforcement Agency did a phenomenal job.’
On January 24 of this year, Santiago pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to distribute, and distribution of, a controlled substance.
In an evidentiary hearing held in March and April about Ethan’s death, the family were finally shown footage of what happened in the early hours of the morning on May 18.
‘It was surreal. Everyone told me not to watch it including the prosecution but my family and I wanted to see the last minutes of our family member,’ Kamal said.
‘It was excruciating to watch how no one helped my son,’ he continued. ‘It was beyond shocking that no one even tried to help whether they were trained or not – and then they stopped two other people who did try to help them.’
Ethan, who was gifted in math and science, and studied business journalism at college was supposed to be heading to law school after graduation
Jerrard Santiago was a prolific drug dealer and had been banned from the casino years earlier
A social media post made by Santiago shortly before he was busted
Kamal told DailyMail.com that from all of the medical records it was not show than Narcan was ever.
He added that a medical expert at the hearing testified that if Ethan was given Narcan he would have been alive.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Meyer concluded that Santiago had knowingly distributed the narcotics that caused Ethan’s overdose and death.
According to court documents, Santiago sold cocaine laced with fentanyl to a 22-year-old male in a restroom of the Mohegan Sun Casino on May 18, 2021. The purchaser overdosed on the casino floor and died approximately 11 days later.
On September 24, Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that Santiago would serve an eight-year prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release.
The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Mohegan Tribal Police, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ross Weingarten and Christopher W. Schmeisser.
Bherwani has since started a nonprofit organization called PreClivity to help raise awareness about the dangers of fentanyl.
‘It’s important to highlight the difference between an overdose and a poisoning. The judge did,’ he explained.
‘Many people think that these deaths are all from opioid addicts. And that’s just not the case.’
He explained that he had no knowledge of any prior cocaine used by his son.
‘I do fault Ethan for doing something he promised he would never do which was hard drugs. Many people who have read or listened to the story think I don’t hold him accountable. I do and he paid for his mistake with his life. There is no higher penalty.
‘But Santiago is also responsible as the Federal courts found and so is Mohegan Sun.’
Kamal added: ‘The winners here are going to be the lives that are saved in the future. Many of whom won’t even know that tragedy was averted.’
‘My initial response was anger but anger is toxic and it doesn’t get you anywhere. Anger covers up pain. I had to work through the anger to get through the pain and create awareness on this issue,’ he continued. ‘Every decision of mine has been guided on what Ethan would have wanted me to do.’
Deaths from fentanyl are reportedly going down for the first time in a decade after reaching astronomic levels – but experts warned the drug is simply running out of people to kill after claiming the lives of around 320,000 Americans in 10 years.
Last year, around 75,000 people in the US were killed by the lethally potent drug, which was slightly down on the previous year and the first time deaths have fallen annually since 2011.
Ethan and Kamal pictured together at the young man’s high school graduation
Ethan pictured with his family – his father, step-sister Natalia, his brother, his stepmom, Sabita at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Jeff Hamilton, president and general manage of Mohegan Sun, said: ‘Mohegan is a family operation that has taken comprehensive steps over the years to ensure that our patrons are kept safe across our property.
‘Mohegan maintains its own 24 hour/day on premises police, EMTs, and paramedics, who are equipped with Narcan, because our guests are paramount at Mohegan Sun.
‘We are saddened by the death of this young man and we appreciate and support the wide-ranging efforts by leaders and other groups to curtail such a serious issue.
‘Since then, we have worked closely with outside law enforcement to assist their work in every way, including recently testifying in court in favor of a more extensive punishment for the individual who illegally provided narcotics in this incident.
‘The fentanyl epidemic is having far too many tragedies every year. This is a national epidemic that needs to be addressed at every turn.’
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