AKRON, Ohio — A judge in Summit County has ordered a Chinese-based organized crime group to pay an Akron family $18 million in damages for the 2015 overdose death of their son.
“He was a big dreamer and a hard worker and a really great person,” Jim Rauh said of his son Tom.
Rauh explained what started as a prescription for opioid painkillers after a rollerblading accident gradually became an addiction for Tom. He eventually struggled with heroin use and purchased what he thought was the drug from an Akron man in 2015.
“He was given a lethal dose of acetyl fentanyl in 2015 when nobody even knew this stuff was around,” said Rauh.
A month before Tom died, prosecutors say the man who was convicted of selling him the deadly drug was in contact with a group in China, seeking the supply of the acetyl fentanyl, a synthetic opioid several times stronger than heroin.
In 2017, the man would be sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in Tom’s death.
In 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions unsealed a 43-count indictment of several members of the Shanghai-based Zheng family for their role. A father and son were charged for operating an organization that manufactured and shipped deadly fentanyl and other drugs to at least two dozen countries.
With little cooperation from the Chinese government stalling the case in federal court, Rauh also chose to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Summit County Court.
“It’s a major step in shining a light on the problem, and it’s another major step to throw another monkey wrench into their works,” he said.
Eight years after his son’s death, a judge sided with the Rauh family and ordered the Zheng group to pay $18 million in damages. The defendants failed to respond to the lawsuit or appear in court, so the judge granted default judgment on the case.
Rauh’s attorneys are seeking to collect the damages from assets targeted by the treasury department, though he’s unsure if, when or how much of the money his family could see, Rauh called the victory symbolic.
“It’s symbolic that we’re not going to tolerate this. We’re going to use everything under the sun in order to stop it,” he said.
Andrew Pollis, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, agreed that seeking damages from an international criminal organization will be challenging, but he said the action in court could serve to raise awareness and as a deterrent for would-be drug traffickers stateside.
“Not only does it draw attention to the issue more globally, but it also does serve as some disincentive to particularly domestic potential defendants,” Pollis said.
In recent years, Rauh has been focused on classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. He believes the distinction would give federal agencies new ways to help stem the flow of the deadly drug into the country.
In 2022, CDC data showed more than 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, largely from fentanyl. Rauh hopes his son’s story and his advocacy will help prevent future tragedies.
“There is hope. We don’t need to live with this. This doesn’t have to be the current and future state of America,” he said.
