After overdose claimed Hillsborough dad, drug dealer gets 12 years in prison

TAMPA — Joshua Sutphin was a son, a grandson, a brother. He liked to fish and hunt. He had an 8-year-old daughter named Alexis. He was engaged to be married and had plans to move to West Virginia to help his grandmother care for his ailing grandfather.

On July 16, 2020, his fiancee arrived home from work to find the 29-year-old collapsed on the kitchen floor in their Riverview home. He was cold. A pair of syringes lay nearby.

His death would be attributed to the combined effects of fentanyl and heroin.

On Thursday, Joseph Stillitano was told he would spend 12 years in prison for Sutphin’s death.

It was Stillitano who provided the drugs to him that morning three years ago, a jury decided last month. Although the death was not intentional, the jury found that Stillitano’s actions amounted to culpable negligence, making him guilty of manslaughter.

It was a step down from the charge Hillsborough prosecutors had sought at trial, the equivalent of first-degree murder.

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Michael Williams said he believed the jury got it right. He also noted the pain endured by the families of both men.

“Drugs can affect anybody. Any family. Anyone’s child,” he said. “That’s on full display here on both sides.”

The case is one of 10 that sprouted during the tenure of former Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren in which the state sought to hold drug dealers responsible for the deaths of users. Results of those cases have varied.

In two cases, defendants negotiated guilty pleas to manslaughter after first being charged with murder, with each receiving a 10-year sentence. In two others, defendants died before their cases could be resolved. In another case, a judge dismissed a murder charge after finding that the state violated the defendant’s due process rights by unnecessarily delaying the filing of charges.

Four other drug-induced homicide cases remain pending in Hillsborough County.

As such prosecutions have trekked through court, deaths from fentanyl in particular have continued to rise. In 2020, Florida medical examiners identified fentanyl as a cause of 5,302 deaths statewide, an increase of 58% from the year before. In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, that number rose another 10%, to 5,791 deaths.

Joshua Sutphin was among them. As the people who loved him took the witness stand Thursday, they told of a man who had for years fought to overcome the pull of addiction.

When he died, he’d just come out of a monthslong treatment program. His mother told the court that, while he was there, he organized a nightly prayer group at his bunk. The people who wanted to participate grew to so many that he got permission to host the prayers in a cafeteria. After his death, his family received messages of sorrow from people who met him there.

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Relatives spoke of his daughter missing fishing trips. They remembered her playing video games with her dad. She told everyone that he was her best friend. After he died, she still sent him text messages, hoping for a reply.

She’s now being raised by her grandparents. Her family reminds her now of how much her dad loved her and how proud of her he would be.

Christie Setteducate, as she had done during the trial, spoke from the witness stand of the horrifying memory of finding her fiance in their kitchen. It is an image she said will haunt her for the rest of her life, and a loss that still causes unbearable pain.

“There are so many things I would never get to do with him again,” Setteducate said. “Never get to wake up beside him. Never get to call him after a long day just to hear his voice. Never get to hear his laugh, or listen to his corny jokes, or roll my eyes as he jokingly picks on me. I will never get to wrap my arms around him and feel a sense of relief because … he was my person. And all that was taken away.”

In court Thursday, Hillsborough sheriff’s Detective Mijail Sequeira testified about a series of text messages investigators found on Stillitano’s phone. The texts were from multiple people who discussed amounts of money and the promise of various narcotics.

The state used the messages to argue that Stillitano was a prolific drug dealer, and in support of the maximum 15-year sentence.

“He’s pumping poison onto the street regularly,” Assistant State Attorney Elizabeth Muller said. “The pain that was caused to this family can be spared to other families, at least for a period of time.”

Stillitano, handcuffed and wearing orange, sat at a defense table throughout Thursday’s hearing. His attorneys mentioned diagnoses of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other conditions. They argued for an eight-year sentence. He said nothing, but appeared forlorn, gazing down as he listened to Sutphin’s relatives — and his own mother.

Alicia Brienza said she prays for Sutphin’s family. She also voiced a sense of helplessness at watching her son grapple with his own addictions and mental illness.

Brienza remembered a young man who was an honor student, who played football and baseball, practiced karate, helped his mother with groceries, and who defended other kids from bullies. She said she struggles to identify a turning point in his life.

“I hate drugs,” she said. “I hate what drugs do to people. And I’ve seen firsthand how it destroys lives. I’ve never had a drug in my life. But every day, I blame myself for not being able to save my son from himself.”