A Nobody, or a Drug Kingpin?
The Tangled Case of Leelanau's Angela Schocko
Conflicting testimony has complicated the prosecution of a woman whom authorities allege supplied the drugs in what’s believed to be Leelanau County’s first-ever opiate overdose death.
What makes the development all the more confounding is that the conflicting testimony comes from the same witness: the daughter of the accused drug dealer. While on the witness stand the daughter has both implicated her mother and exonerated her.
The wavering dynamic was on display Oct. 16 at a preliminary examination for Angela Schocko, the 48-year-old who faces up to life in prison on a charge of delivering drugs causing death.
Schocko’s daughter, 20-year-old Erin Grant, testified for the prosecution against her mother and, at one point, said her mother supplied the drugs, but at another point, said she didn’t. Grant ended her testimony by pleading the Fifth Amendment.
The drama unfolded as four generations of Schocko’s female relatives watched, seated behind her in the courtroom gallery.
Another witness, a neighbor of Schocko, testified that two days after the death, Schocko asked if she could flush what he believed was evidence of the death down his toilet. In the end, District Court Judge Michael Stepka ruled there was enough evidence for Schocko to stand trial on the charges.
No one said drug cases are supposed to be simple, said Joseph Hubbell, the county prosecutor.
“Any of these cases pose a challenge, particularly where people are given immunity or agree to testify for something else. … These are difficult cases, but when you’re dealing with the people involved in these kinds of transactions, you’re not always dealing with the most honorable, believable people,” he said. “Just because it’s challenging doesn’t mean I should shirk away from doing my job.”
A ‘NOBODY’ OR A KING PIN?
Schocko’s defense attorney, David Becker, said Grant’s conflicting testimony, and the conflicting testimony of Grant’s co-defendant and boyfriend, 22-year-old Preston Weaver, undermine the prosecution’s case against Schocko.
“The prelim transcript, right now, is more than enough to impeach both of the witnesses against my client,” Becker said. “It’s the kind of case, ‘Were you lying then, or are you lying now? Or, were you always lying? Do you ever tell the truth?’”
Becker said his client is “a nobody” who investigators have built up to be some kind of drug kingpin. He said investigators pursued the case with “too much muscle” in reaction to the ugliness of an overdose death occurring in the picturesque county.
Becker said Grant and Preston were given an incentive to lie and pin the case on Schocko when they might, in fact, have been the responsible party.
“The kids weren’t told, ‘You’ve got to testify honestly to get this plea bargain,’”he said. “They were told, ‘You’ve got to go after your mother to get this plea bargain.’”
Hubbell denied that that’s what occurred, and he said Becker’s allegation isn’t worthy of a response. “That’s totally untrue,” he said. “I don’t think that comment even deserves a comment. That’s ridiculous.”
On the witness stand, Grant was unquestionably in a tough spot. She was obligated to testify against her mother while her mother, facing a life offense, watched from the defendant’s table. Hubbell said he believes that Grant told the truth when she implicated her mother and retracted only amid the pressure of having to testify before her. Hubbell also indicated he believes Schocko is a big-time drug dealer; he also charged her with conducting a criminal enterprise.
Grant was originally charged with delivery causing death in connection with the Nov. 22 death of 31-year-old Kevin Yannett of Peshawbestown, but she was able to plead guilty to a much less serious offense on the condition that she cooperate in the prosecution of her mother.
Hubbell said that despite the conflicting testimony, he’s going to go ahead and prepare for trial. He said he had no comment when asked whether he was thinking of having Grant arrested for violating her plea agreement.
LONG AND TANGLED HISTORY
Kevin Yannett’s father, Donald, said he believes Grant’s testimony wavered “because she’s worried about her street cred, I would assume.”
Donald Yannett is confident that Schocko, Grant and Weaver are all responsible for his son’s overdose, a death that left behind four children, ages 4 to 12, whom he is now raising, and cut short a life that was on the turnaround. Yannett said Kevin was trying to get clean and planned to move to Pennsylvania, where he had connections to join a union and make good money as a welder.
Yannett died of an opiate overdose after consuming what has alternately been described as fentanyl-laced heroin orpure fentanyl.Yannett said he thought Grant should have gotten 10 years in prison, rather than the less than a year in jail that she served. And he said he thinks Schocko should get life.
“This isn’t her first go around with corrupt enterprises,” Yannett said.
Another complicating factor in the case is that it doesn’t involve strangers; it involves a group of people who have known each other for most of their lives.
Earlier in life, Yannett said Grant called him “uncle,” because he used to date Grant’s aunt, who he’s known since he was a teenager. Pshawbestown has always been a tight-knit community, but Yannett said he never got to know Schocko well. He said he had never wanted to. It appeared to Yannett that Schocko was defined by having a mother who had a good job and therefore didn’t need to have one herself.
“I’ve never been real close with her,” he said. “She appears to have a very careless, reckless disregard for life. She’s lived totally irresponsibly, because of a mommy with purse strings.”
The family matriarch’s job was at Harley Davidson, he said, and for years Schocko and her family lived in Wisconsin, where Weaver grew up.
“The whole crew lived in Milwaukee for years and years,” he said.
A STORY CHANGES AND THEN DISSOLVES
When she pled guilty to drug charges in April in order to get out of a delivery causing death charge, Grant told the court that when she and Preston delivered drugs to Yannett, she drove and that it was Weaver who actually exchanged the drugs for $20. She testified that both of them were acting upon instructions from her mother.
When Grant was first called Oct. 2 to testify at a prelim in her mother’s case, however, Grant’s testimony was not so straightforward. As she wavered from her plea statement, District Court Judge Michael Stepka warned Grant that she could be getting herself into trouble. Stepka adjourned the hearing for two weeks so that an attorney could be appointed to represent Grant.
The next hearing got off to a slow start as Grant was allowed repeated private meetings with her appointed attorney, William Burdette, and all of the attorneys in the case, including Hubble and Becker, met several times with Stepka in chambers to discuss how Grant’s testimony should proceed.
She started out, under questioning from Hubble, testifying as she had during her plea and implicating her mother. She said she and Weaver stole the drugs from her mother’s boyfriend in Benzonia, a guy with the nickname “Coach,” and then delivered them as instructed by her mother.
In questioning from Becker, Grant walked back that testimony and minimized her mother’s involvement. That led to a break in the hearing while the attorneys met in private and Grant, after a quiet encounter with her mother and other family members, stormed crying out of the courtroom.
Later, when she was back on the stand, Becker asked: “Have you been threatened in any way about your testimony today?”
“I plead the Fifth,” Grant said.
When Hubbell resumed questioning and attempted to have Grant clearly state her mother’s involvement, Grant repeated, “I plead the Fifth.” Hubbell, visibly frustrated, said he had no more questions.
PEOPLE WHO LIVE TOUGH LIVES
Even though she is only 20 years old, Grant has already lived a tough life among a community of people who live tough lives.
Grant was addicted to methadone at birth, according to information she provided during her pre-sentence investigation. From there, she bounced around foster homes. Between the ages of 9 and 11, she had lived in three foster homes, she said. At one, she said her foster mother choked her sister because Grant wanted to tell her mother that she loved her during a phone call.
At the sentencing hearing, she said she lost both of her stepparents a year earlier to heroin overdoses, something that caused her to use more marijuana and cocaine.
“No child should ever have to go through what Erin has,” said Tony Moses, Grant’s defense attorney, at her sentencing hearing.
Moses told Circuit Court Judge Thomas Power that the horror of what happened to Yannett changed his client. Though Grant had been remorseful all along for Yannett’s death, the time she spent in jail caused her to reassess her life.
At the hearing, Grant addressed the man she used to call “uncle” and apologized.
“Don, I’m sorry I drove, knowing drugs were going to be delivered to your son,” she said. “I wish I could take it all back. And, I really never meant for all this to happen, and I pray every day you guys forgive me.”
Grant at one time wanted to be a special education teacher. At her sentencing, she said she’s had a lot of time to think about dashed goals.
“Before I got arrested I didn’t take life serious,” she said. “And, being in jail for five months has made me question myself, what I have accomplished in my life so far, honestly nothing, all my goals I made as a teen were not accomplished. But it’s never too late to make new goals and achieve them."
Donald Yannett said at that hearing that the responsibility for raising his grandchildren is a huge burden. Yannett is disabled and cannot work. He lives on a fixed income. (In an interview, Yannett said other family members have been helping out.)
Yannett said he understands that sometimes people make mistakes when they are young. He said he made a lot of mistakes when he was young, though never anything that cost someone their life. But he got into trouble quite a bit, he said, so he understands the importance of paying consequences.
“It took me a long time to correct myself, and I don’t have any sympathy for anybody” who hasn’t paid their debt to society, he said at the hearing. “Go pay your dues, turn your life around, or cash in. I turned my life around. It is possible. I as well grew up with a rough childhood. I grew up in orphanages, foster homes. I didn’t make it home until I was about 13. I was treated as an adult. I acted like an adult. I fended for myself.”
State sentencing guideline called for a minimum sentence range of anywhere from seven to 23 months for Grant. Power sentenced her to one year in jail and she got credit for the 159 days she’d already served.
The case was made complicated, Power said, because it involved a minor crime that led to grave consequences.
“This is actually a classic example of a difficult case because the consequences are horrendous. And the action — there is no doubt that Ms. Grant had no idea this was going to happen, did not intend it, would never have done it if she had known,” Power said.
A COMMON BACKGROUND
In addition to being in a relationship and being co-defendants in the Kevin Yannett death case, Weaver and Grant had other things in common.
Though he grew up across Lake Michigan, Weaver also had a tough childhood. At his sentencing hearing, Weaver’s attorney, Jesse Williams, explained how Weaver’s home was raided by police when he was 13, and his mother and father ended up in prison on drug charges.
Weaver went to live with his grandmother and later attended a military academy.
Despite his unstable formative years, however, Williams said that Weaver developed a good work ethic and mostly managed to stay out of trouble.
“Mr. Weaver is unique in that he’s always worked,” Williams told Power. “He wasn’t just lying around selling drugs. He’s always worked.”
Weaver and Grant lived together with Weaver’s mother in Milwaukee for about a year before his mother asked them to leave; the couple came to northern Michigan.
That’s when, Williams said, Weaver got mixed up with Grant’s mom, and he became involved in the drug trade.
“It was a very short career for Mr. Weaver,” Williams said.
Weaver addressed the court: “I have nightmares, and it’s hard to sleep because I keep thinking about everything that happened, and it’s hard in my mind, and I wish I could take it back but there is no way that could happen.”
ONE LAST QUESTION
When Donald Yannett spoke at Weaver’s hearing, he noted that Weaver and Grant should have known that what they sold his son was deadly. The drugs were from the same batch that just days earlier had led to the overdoses of two people in Peshawbestown. Those people survived only because police administered an overdose reversal drug in time.
“They knew it was dangerous. They knew it was fatal. But they still delivered it because they want a couple of extra bucks,” Yannett said. “I like money, but I don’t like it that well.”
Power questioned Williams about that point: Shouldn’t Weaver (and for that matter, Grant) have known the danger posed by the drugs they were selling when the overdoses occurred four days prior to Yannett’s death?
Williams responded that Weaver didn’t know what he was selling and was simply acting on instructions from Schocko.
“He doesn’t know what they are,” Williams said. “He wouldn’t know heroin from fentanyl.”
Williams noted how they got the drugs from the pocket of Schocko’s boyfriend’s pants at her apartment in Benzonia, and then drove to Suttons Bay, where the drugs were sold to Yannett for $20.
That amount of money for a drug deal that involved driving from Benzonia to Suttons Bay struck Power as significant. Perhaps, Power said, they were motivated by something other than money.
“Clearly it’s not about the money,” Power said. “The mileage eats the 20 bucks.”
Weaver had a criminal record consisting of four misdemeanor convictions for theft and drunk driving. Though minor, his record made the difference in what sentencing guidelines suggested should be his fate. Power sentenced him to two to seven years in prison.
Meanwhile, as the case against Schocko on delivery causing death charges progresses through court, Schocko will have a new court-appointed attorney.
Becker said he agreed to take on the defense as a court-appointed attorney only through the prelim; he said he’s too old to get involved in a big, complicated trial; and another attorney will be appointed to take over in circuit court as the case heads to trial.