Dealer Gets Life in Drug Death, Then Is Freed

A cocaine dealer, convicted of murder in the overdose death of a customer, was sentenced Monday to 15 years to life in state prison by an Orange County Superior Court judge, who then suspended the sentence and gave the dealer five years’ probation.

The action came as a curious twist to an already unusual case, surprising defense and prosecuting attorneys alike.

Last September, Judge Phillip E. Cox found Philip Alviso, 28, guilty of second-degree murder for selling an eighth of an ounce of cocaine to Phillip Mikolajek in 1982. Eleven hours after the sale, Mikolajek, 22, was taken to an Anaheim hospital in a coma.

Alviso, who was under investigation in another drug-related offense, had admitted to an undercover narcotics agent that he had sold the drug to Mikolajek.

Alviso’s case, according to legal experts, was not the first in which someone was charged with murder for supplying a fatal overdose of a drug. But most of the handful of convictions in such cases in California have involved heroin--not cocaine--and the alleged criminal conduct went far beyond simply supplying the drugs.

Prosecutors have said that Alviso’s conviction sent a harsh message: Sell drugs, and, if someone dies, go to jail for murder.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas J. Borris said that message was diluted Monday by Cox’s decision to keep Alviso out of jail. Borris added that he was “disappointed” by the ruling.

“It doesn’t send out as strong a message, but it still sends out a strong one,” Borris said. “The man was convicted of murder. If he ever gets into trouble again . . . he will go to prison for 15 years to life. . . . We’re talking one of the most serious sentences you can get in the criminal system.”

But if he does not violate the terms of his probation, Alviso is a free man, defense attorney Greg W. Jones said Monday.

‘Won the War’

“We lost the battle but won the war,” Jones said. “It’s very unusual. I still disagree with the judge’s decision in regard to Mr. Alviso’s guilt. I don’t think the (prosecution) proved that it was Mr. Alviso’s cocaine that caused the death. But as to the sentencing, that he (Cox) imposed today, I couldn’t be more pleased--nor could Mr. Alviso.”

During the trial, Mikolajek’s roommate testified that the dead man was an intensive, daily user of cocaine who could easily inject an eighth of an ounce in half a day.

According to other trial testimony, Mikolajek bought the drug from Alviso at noon on Sept. 17, 1982, went to his Garden Grove home and injected himself with an unknown amount. At a party later that night, he snorted more of the drug and went into a coma at about 11 p.m. He was declared brain dead six days later.