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College student's family awarded $75 million in wrongful death lawsuit
When 21-year-old Denis Preka began having a reaction to the drug, his friends recorded him and posted the videos to social media.
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - The family of a university student who died after accidentally overdosing over five years ago is finally getting some justice.
Denis Preka, a 21-year-old University of Michigan student, died in March 2019 after unknowingly taking a high dose of MDMA, also known as Molly, when he asked his friends for an Adderal to study, according to his family's attorney, Mike Morse.
When Preka began having a reaction to the drug, his friends recorded him and posted the videos to social media.
"In their recklessness and their ignorance, his friends watched and recorded Denis' suffering, assuming he was merely tripping," Morse said during a press conference in Southfield on Friday.
A Wayne County jury awarded Preka's family $75 million in his wrongful death lawsuit.
"He was the most amazing child that any mother (could) desire," Preka's mom, Linda Thom, said. "He was kind, he was loving."
Denis Preka (The Denis Preka Foundation)
Morse said his friends did not call 911 until it was too late.
"The sadistic humiliating videos, the mockery," said Preka's father, Jamie Thom.
"He was poisoned to death, but not only that, he was laughed at – throwing water in his face," his mother added.
The family is now trying to focus on how Preka lived, rather than how he died. His parents started a foundation in his honor.
"Part of the Denis Preka Foundation will be these friendship benches that we are going to put on different campuses around Michigan and wherever it goes from there – just to really promote young people to get together and have that face to face time, versus just social media connections," Jamie said.
Preka’s friends who gave him the fatal dose of Molly have not been criminally charged yet.