The attorney for the HBO producer connected with the 2015 overdose death of Manhasset dermatologist Kiersten Cerveny said last week the charges against his client were “unusual.”
Marc Henry Johnson was arrested last Wednesday and faces one charge of attempting to sell cocaine and one charge of accessory-after-the-fact for his role in relocating Cerveny’s body after she had a drug overdose at a cocaine dealer’s apartment.
“It’s an unusual set of charges that we’ve just begun looking at,” Lee Ginsburg, who is representing Johnson, told Newsday.
Efforts by Blank Slate Media to reach Ginsburg for comment were unavailing.
Johnson and James Holder, who is charged with selling narcotics, brought Cerveny’s body into the lobby of an apartment building in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood after she died of a cocaine overdose on Oct. 4, 2015, according to the criminal complaint filed last Wednesday.
The charges against Johnson and Holder stemmed from a seven-month investigation into the death of the 38-year-old doctor, according to the criminal complaint.
Cerveny, who practiced at Prohealth Care Associates LLP at 2 Hillside Ave. in Williston Park, had reportedly gone out with friends earlier in the evening but later met with Johnson, the 51-year-old HBO producer.
The two went to a 16th Street address, allegedly where Holder lived, and the producer reportedly called 911 to notify authorities of Cerveny’s death before fleeing the scene toward Eighth Avenue.
Cerveny was discovered unconscious and unresponsive around 8:30 a.m. in the vestibule of the building, located at West 16th Street near Seventh Avenue, according to published reports.
She was later pronounced dead at Lenox Health Greenwich Hospital.
Cerveny died from “acute cocaine and alcohol intoxication,” according to the New York City Medical Examiner’s office.
Ginsburg said that Johnson felt “awful from the moment that it happened.”
Johnson was released on a $300,000 bond and is due back in court on June 24.
Holder was detained without bail and is also due back in court on June 24.
According to the criminal complaint, Holder sold at least five kilograms of cocaine from 2003 until October 2015.
Neither of the two men have been charged with Cerveny’s death.
