2014 Heroin Homicide Defendant Has Trial Next Month

NEW LENOX, IL - It may seem like forever since we last wrote about criminal defendant Mark Harmon, who is charged with committing a drug-induced homicide in the village of New Lenox. In April 2015, the 23-year-old Harmon, along with 29-year-old co-defendant Adam Pate, were both charged in connection with the Christmas Eve 2014 death of a 30-year-old New Lenox resident.

The Will County State's Attorney's Office charged both men for "knowingly and unlawfully delivering heroin, a controlled substance, to another, Jeff Tediski."

"Jeff Tediski thereafter ingested an amount of heroin into his body and said ingestion of that heroin caused the death of Jeff Tediski," court records show.

Pate, who turns 33 this week, pleaded guilty to the crime and ended up with a prison sentence of six years and six months. He remains locked away from society inside the Illinois Department of Corrections, at the southern Illinois prison in Pinckneyville. Pate is slated to be paroled in October 2020.

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As for Harmon, he has remained in the Will County lockup for more than three straight years. He was taken into custody on April 3, 2015. Back in February, his criminal defense lawyer petitioned the judge for an emergency one-day furlough.

Tragically, Harmon lost his brother to a drug overdose, Patch learned.

"Joey was 20 and found unresponsive by their mother," Harmon's criminal defense attorney Thomas O'Connor of Chicago wrote Will County Judge Dave Carlson in February, court records show.

"Joey and defendant were very close and Joey was a huge source of support for defendant and defendant's parents during defendant's incarceration," the lawyer noted.

Reports at the Will County Coroner's Office show that Joey Harmon died on Feb. 2 in New Lenox Township from an overdose involving Fentanyl intoxication.

After attending his brother's wake at Brady-Gill Funeral Service in Tinley Park and the funeral Mass at St. Jude's Catholic Church in New Lenox, Mark Harmon checked himself back into the Will County Jail just as his lawyer promised the judge.

Given that Mark Harmon's drug-induced homicide case has already dragged on for more than three years inside the Will County Courthouse, it appears his case is finally ready to go to trial.

Carlson has scheduled a jury trial date of June 11.

Mugshot of Mark Harmon via Will County Sheriff's Department