Disturbing video has revealed a college student’s final moments before he collapsed and died while celebrating his graduation at a casino in Connecticut.
Ethan Bherwani, 22, of Long Island, was with two friends at the Mohegan Sun casino in May 2021 when he made the devastating decision to buy cocaine from a dealer in the bathroom.
Unbeknownst to him, the cocaine was laced with the lethal drug fentanyl, causing him to collapse at the blackjack table moments later.
Surveillance footage showed him wearing a hat and mask while playing cards before he fell unconscious and collapsed to the ground, where he remained motionless.
His friends were not there because they had already gone to bed. Other people can be seen looking at him but they continued playing cards. Two other passers-by then run towards him to try to provide help, but a member of staff appears to wave them away. It was 11 minutes before paramedics arrived and performed CPR.
Ethan was eventually transported to the hospital, but died nine days later on May 27, 2021, just days before his graduation ceremony at Baruch College in New York.
His heartbroken father, Kamal Bherwani, 55, has spent the last three years fighting for justice after it emerged that the drug dealer who sold his son the deadly cocaine, Jerrard Santiago, was prolific in the area and years earlier was arrested. He had banned entry to the casino.
Disturbing video has revealed a college student’s final moments before he collapsed and died while celebrating his graduation at a casino in Connecticut.
Ethan Bherwani, 22, died from an accidental fentanyl overdose. This photo was taken just weeks before his death in May 2021.
Ethan, who was talented in math and science and studied business journalism in college, was supposed to head to law school after graduating.
But his father Kamal said: “We knew there was no hope when the doctor told us he was brain dead.”
He later “gave the gift of life to three people” by donating his organs, he added.
After his son’s death, Ethan’s father, a global businessman who worked with former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, began investigating the events that led to his son’s death.
It was during these investigations that he learned that Santiago, 44, was a prolific drug trafficker with a criminal past who had been permanently banned from the Mohegan Sun casino for violent behavior in 2017.
At that time, Mohegan Sun police had slapped Santiago with a trespass notice and told him that if he returned to the casino he would be arrested.
However, Santiago managed to get past casino security seven times between 2020 and 2022, according to a police affidavit.
Records showed three visits in 2020, two in 2021, including the day Ethan died, and two more in 2022.
‘Mohegan Sun puts money before the safety of its customers. These are dates reported by Mohegan Sun police, but there are probably dozens more,” Kamal said.
He also revealed that when Mohegan Sun police detained Santiago at the casino after Ethan collapsed, the drug dealer claimed he didn’t know who he was.
—They never checked his identification. “They could have arrested him right then and there and we would never have had to go through the last three years,” Kamal said.
Almost two years passed until Santiago was finally arrested on March 30, 2023.
Describing how Santiago was arrested, Kamal explained that a trusted acquaintance of the trafficker who was in prison became an informant in exchange for leniency.
“They set up a vehicle with audio and video surveillance and orchestrated two drug purchases,” he said.
Investigators made a controlled purchase of fentanyl and heroin from Santiago on February 3, 2023, and again on February 14, 2023 of fentanyl and cocaine.
Kamal added, “The District Attorney’s Office did a phenomenal job.”
On January 24 of this year, Santiago pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to distribute and distribution of a controlled substance.
At an evidentiary hearing held in March and April into Ethan’s death, the family was finally shown footage of what happened in the early morning hours of May 18.
‘It was surreal. “Everyone told me not to watch it, including the prosecutor’s office, but my family and I wanted to see the last minutes of our family member,” Kamal said.
“It was unbearable to see how no one helped my son,” he continued.. “It was beyond shocking that no one even tried to help, whether they were trained or not, and then they stopped two other people who did try to help them.”
Ethan, who was talented in math and science and studied business journalism in college, was supposed to head to law school after graduating.
Jerrard Santiago was a prolific drug dealer and had been banned from the casino years before.
A social media post made by Santiago shortly before being arrested
Kamal added that a medical expert at the hearing testified that if Ethan had been administered Narcan, he would have been alive.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Meyer concluded that Santiago had knowingly distributed the narcotics that caused Ethan’s overdose and death.
According to court documents, Santiago sold cocaine laced with fentanyl to a 22-year-old man in a bathroom at the Mohegan Sun Casino on May 18, 2021. The buyer overdosed at the casino and died approximately 11 days later.
On September 24, Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that Santiago would serve an eight-year prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release.
The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Mohegan Tribal Police, and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ross Weingarten and Christopher W. Schmeisser.
Bherwani has since started a non-profit organization called proclevity to help raise awareness about the dangers of fentanyl.
‘It is important to highlight the difference between an overdose and poisoning. The judge did it,’ he explained.
‘Many people think that all these deaths are due to opioid addicts. And that’s simply not the case.
He explained that he knew his son had experimented with cocaine several times and had paid the ultimate price.
‘I blame Ethan for doing something he promised he would never do, which was hard drugs. Many people who have read or heard the story think that I don’t hold him responsible. I do it and he paid for his mistake with his life. There is no greater penalty.
“But Santiago is also responsible, as the federal courts have found, and so is Mohegan Sun.”
Kamal added: ‘The winners here will be the lives saved in the future. Many of whom will not even know that the tragedy was prevented.”
‘My initial response was anger, but anger is toxic and gets you nowhere. Anger covers the pain. I had to overcome the anger to overcome the pain and raise awareness about this issue,” she continued. “Every decision of mine has been guided by what Ethan would have wanted me to do.”
Fentanyl deaths are reportedly declining for the first time in a decade after reaching astronomical levels, but experts warned that The drug is simply running out of people to kill after claiming the lives of about 320,000 Americans in 10 years.
Last year, about 75,000 people in the United States died from the powerful lethal drug, down slightly from the previous year and the first time deaths have decreased annually since 2011.
Ethan and Kamal photographed together at the young man’s high school graduation
Ethan photographed with his family: his father, his stepsister Natalia, his brother, his stepmother, Sabita at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Jeff Hamilton, president and general manager of Mohegan Sun, said: ‘Mohegan is a family-owned operation that has taken comprehensive steps over the years to ensure our customers are safe throughout our property.
‘Mohegan maintains its own police, paramedics and paramedics on-site 24 hours a day, who are equipped with Narcan, because our guests are paramount at Mohegan Sun.
‘We are saddened by the death of this young man and appreciate and support the extensive efforts of leaders and other groups to reduce such a serious problem.
‘Since then, we have worked closely with outside law enforcement to assist in their work in every way, including recently testifying in court in favor of an expanded punishment for the individual who illegally provided narcotics in this incident.
‘The fentanyl epidemic causes too many tragedies each year. “This is a national epidemic that must be addressed at all times.”
