Arrest Made In Randall's Island Electric Zoo Overdose Death

On Wednesday Federal authorities arrested a Buffalo man for allegedly supplying the synthetic drug "Molly" which led to the fatal overdose of Jeffrey Russ, 23, an attendee at the electronic dance music festival on Randall's Island last year. Olivia Rotondo, 20, from North Providence, R.I., also died at the festival as a result of an overdose. A 16-year-old girl was also sexually assaulted, nineteen people were treated for drugs,  and  31 people were arrested in connection with the event.  

In June it was revealed that the Parks Department would be receiving 450 complimentary tickets to the Electric Zoo Festival worth as much as  $72,550 as part of a deal with the rave's organizer to bring the event back to Randall’s Island after last year's debacle.

Organizers are also required to pay $600,000 to the Randall’s Island Park Alliance. 

Randall's Island

Federal authorities arrested a man in Buffalo on Wednesday for allegedly supplying a synthetic drug that led to the fatal overdose of an attendee at an electronic dance music festival on Randall's Island last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Patrick Morgan, 23 years old, was charged with one count of narcotics distribution and one count of conspiring to distribute narcotics.

Federal prosecutors said in a criminal complaint that Mr. Morgan sold pills, known as "molly," to Jeffrey Russ, 23, and two other people before the Electric Zoo music festival over Labor Day weekend.

Mr. Russ consumed the drug during the festival and died in the early morning on Aug. 31, 2013. City officials canceled the third day of the event after another person died and others grew sick.

Mr. Morgan appeared in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York on Wednesday and was released on $100,000 bond, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office said.

His attorney, Brian Comerford, didn't return a request for comment.

The two people who purchased the drug with Mr. Russ assisted law-enforcement officials from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office and the New York division of the Drug Enforcement Administration with their investigation, the complaint said.

In the complaint, DEA Special Agent Louis Schmidt said Mr. Morgan sold the drug to Mr. Russ and the others at a different electronic music concert in Buffalo earlier in August.

About two weeks later, the three pooled their money and went back to Mr. Morgan, the complaint said. They paid $1,100 for 80 more pills for "themselves and to distribute to others" at the Electric Zoo event, the complaint said.

On Aug. 30, during the festival, Mr. Russ consumed some of the pills supplied by Mr. Morgan and collapsed into a seizure, the complaint said. He died at Harlem Hospital at 3:21 a.m. the following morning, the complaint said, adding that when he had a 108 degree temperature and rapid heartbeat while he was being transported by an ambulance.

The complaint said one of Mr. Russ' friends met with Mr. Morgan on March 24, 2014 to discuss the death. A text message was later sent by the informant, at the direction of investigators, to implicate Mr. Morgan in the matter.

"Glad we got to talk about Jeff a little it was bugging me," the informant texted Mr. Morgan. "Just know that I no longer blame us for giving the molly to him because it was him that made the mistake of taking too much," the text said, according to the complaint. According to the complaint, Mr. Morgan responded: "Yeah man u too call me whenever you want."

Mr. Morgan faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each charge.

A spokesman for Syracuse University confirmed Mr. Morgan was a student on campus. Mr. Russ was also a student at the school, a family member said.

Olivia Rotondo, 20, from North Providence, R.I., also died at the festival after collapsing from the likely intake of the same type of drug, New York City officials have said. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office wouldn't comment on whether Mr. Morgan was being investigated in that matter.

Organizers of the outdoor festival, which attracted 130,000 people last year, are still waiting on the city to grant final approval for this year's scheduled concert on Randall's Island over the Labor Day weekend.

A spokesman for the mayor's office said the Parks Department approved the permit application submitted by event organizers on April 29 based on a proposal for better security and medical services for concertgoers.

A detailed site and security plan was presented to the City on July 22, the spokesman said, adding that those proposals would be reviewed "before the city grants final approval to proceed."

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More than 100,000 people attended Electric Zoo before drug overdoses, a rape, and 31 arrests forced organizers to cancel the remainder of the event.  A 28-year-old attendee from Elmont, LI, is on life support with kidney failure at Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx. (Photo: Brian Killian/WireImage)

Nineteen attendees were stricken at the rave.  Electric Zoo’s Long Island City-based organizer, Made Event, hired its own doctor and ambulances so “they wouldn’t have to call 911, which would bring the cops,’’ a source said.

Déjà Vu?   Electric Zoo co-founder Mike Bindra, 44, the former manager the drug-plagued Twilo club in Chelsea,  also employed a private ambulance outside the club.   The club was shut down by the city in 2001 after unconscious patrons were found hidden by employees and several fatal ODs.  City officials charged that Twilo used its own private ambulances for overdoses to remain off the NYPD radar. A lawsuit alleged that management hid dozens of sick patrons rather than calling for help.  

Randall's Island

A total of 19 hard-partying Electric Zoo attendees were stricken at the Randall’s Island rave — a fact organizers hid from the NYPD by concealing them in private ambulances and “MASH”-style tents, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

A 28-year-old attendee from Elmont, LI, is on life support with kidney failure at Lincoln Hospital in The Bronx, a source said. Two other partiers died after popping ecstasy pills called Mollys at last weekend’s festival that drew 100,000, sources said.

Electric Zoo’s Long Island City-based organizer, Made Event, hired its own doctor and ambulances so “they wouldn’t have to call 911, which would bring the cops,’’ a source said.

“It was just another way to keep the cops from finding” out what was going on, the source said. “[The organizers] had tents set up all over. It was like a MASH unit.

“This is the same thing that was done in the clubs in the ’90s in the city.’’

Electric Zoo founder Mike Bindra, 44, is the former manager of one of those clubs — the drug-plagued Twilo in Chelsea.

It was closed down in 2001 following two fatal overdoses of MDMA — also known as ecstasy or “X” — there by college students. At the time, some club workers said they were ordered to put unconscious partiers in back rooms and just splash them with cold water to try to revive them.

Linda Wiest — the mom of Johns Hopkins junior James Wiest, who died after overdosing at the club in 2000 — told The Post yesterday, “For [Bindra] to be able to continue and make money and profit, I think it’s atrocious.

“I really thought that he had been shut down when the nightclub closed. I didn’t realize that he was still profiting from events where drugs were being so freely distributed,” she said.

The 65-year-old mom sued the club and eventually settled.

 (from l) Mike Bindra,  Aimee Boden - President & Park Administrator of the Randall's Island Park Alliance RIPA -  Bindra's wife - Laura Tigz De Palma, and Anne Wilson,  Director of Planning & Public Funding for RIPA.  Bindra and his wife Laura are the founders of the Electric Zoo.  RIPA reportedly received a $600,000 fee from event organizers.  (Image: NY Daily News)

The annual Electric Zoo festival appears to be on track to return to Randall’s Island next year.

“We’ve been working with this promoter for the last five years and they have a stellar record,’’ Mayor Bloomberg told reporters yesterday.

“They . . . put in as good of procedures as we could think of and have been nothing but cooperative, and I have nothing but good things to say.”

Bindra’s spokesman, Stefan Friedman, fought back against the allegations.

“For anonymous sources to suggest we have doctors and ambulances on site for anything but to treat people in as efficient a way as possible is obscene,” he said. “We are devastated by the tragedies of last weekend and are working hand in hand  with the NYPD and all other city agencies — as we have for the past five years — to get to the bottom of what occurred.”

As for his boss’s role in Twilo, “He booked the acts, and he was in charge of various elements of the club,” Friedman said. “But he never oversaw security. That wasn’t what he did.”

Police said they are still trying to figure out where the dead pair — 20-year-old Olivia Rotondo of Rhode Island and 23-year-old Jeffrey Russ of Rochester — and other Zoo attendees got their drugs.

NYPD homicide cops are assisting in the investigation.

Additional reporting by Beth DeFalco

Electric Zoo co-founder Mike Bindra's golf cart sat idle on Sunday after the event was cancelled. (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) 

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"People are overdosing and the fact they put an ambulance outside a nightclub should be enough to establish that nightclub should be closed."  - Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington  April 2001

(from l) Mike Bindra,  Aimee Boden - President & Park Administrator of the Randall's Island Park Alliance RIPA -  Bindra's wife - Laura Tigz De Palma, and Anne Wilson,  Director of Planning & Public Funding for RIPA.   Bindra was the general manager of Twilo.    Bindra and his wife Laura are the founders of the Electric Zoo music festival.  RIPA  receives a large fee from Electric Zoo for the event. (Image: NY Daily News)

 In total two people died, a 16-year-old girl was raped,  at least four people were hospitalized in critical condition after apparent drug overdoses, and police made thirty-one arrests as a result of the Electric Zoo event.   

Randall's Island

The founder of the music festival where two people died of apparent drug-related causes on Saturday once ran a Chelsea nightclub that the city closed after accusations it acted like an Ecstasy emporium, played a role in two fatal overdoses and hid scores of unconscious patrons in a secret room without medical care, according to DNAinfo.  

In 2009 Miami promoter Mike Bindra, 44, and his wife, Laura De Palma, created Electric Zoo, the annual Labor Day weekend extravaganza at city-owned Randall's Island. Their company, Made Event, canceled the festival's remaining shows on Sunday after the two deaths and 31 arrests on charges varying from the sale and possession of drugs to disorderly conduct.

Bindra was once the general manager of Twilo, one of city's most popular dance clubs, which became a target of law enforcement agencies during Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration.

The West 27th Street hot spot — owned by impresarios Steve Dash and Phil Smith — drew the unwanted attention after two fatal overdoses inside of two years. The first occurred in 1998 when NYU student Bridgette Murray overdosed on the Ecstasy she took there.

After the co-ed's death, the city filed a public nuisance lawsuit in Manhattan Civil Supreme Court to shutter Twilo, accusing it of operating as drug den and being the scene of multiple arrests.

But the city lost the case, and techno music and drugs apparently kept flowing. 

In July 2000, Johns Hopkins University student James Wiest collapsed on the club's dance floor after taking Ecstasy and later died at St. Vincent's Hospital.


Twilo, a w. 27th Street club in Chelsea that the city identified as a designer drug den, was closed in 2001 after unconscious patrons were found hidden by employees.   (Photo: Kristen Artz)   

Wiest's mother later settled with Twilo and its associates for $250,000 after claiming in a lawsuit that club security dragged her unconscious son into a back room, where they left him without care for as long as three hours. The lawsuit also claimed that club officials later called a private ambulance.

City officials said the club used private ambulances to avoid police involvement.

"It is ludicrous," the city's then Deputy Mayor Rudy Washington told the New York Times in an April 2001 interview. "People are overdosing and the fact they put an ambulance outside a nightclub should be enough to establish that nightclub should be closed."

In October 2000, Twilo security guard Joseph Murray was arrested for hiding three unconscious patrons in a dark room while paramedics searched for them in the club. Bouncers had stymied the emergency responders by twice telling them no one needed medical attention, according to court records.

Murray told investigators that he had put two of the patrons in the room because his superiors instructed him “to hide those people,” court records show. He eventually pleaded guilty to obtructing government administration.

In fall 2000 the city again tried to close Twilo by refusing to renew the club's cabaret license. The move led to another court battle, but in May 2001 an appellate court ruled in the city's favor, shuttering the club after six years of operation.

During the legal battle, Joseph Murray filed an affidavit supporting the city's case, claiming he saw scores of patrons dragged into a back room and later taken by private ambulance to hospitals.

"During the three years that I have worked on security inside Twilo, I have seen at least 100 instances in which unconscious or semiconscious patrons have been placed in the safe area by security and left there," he said in his affidavit.



Electric Zoo co-founder Mike Bindra's event golf cart sits idle on Sunday. (Photo: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) 

Bindra was never charged with any wrongdoing in his role as Twilo's manager.

Stefan Friedman, a spokesman for Electric Zoo festival, said that Bindra did not oversee security at Twilo when the fatal overdoses occurred.

"Mike was only involved in booking talent and promoting, not operations," Friedman said.

He added that the head of security reported directly to two other general managers. 

However, during his days at Twilo, Bindra frequently discussed in news stories the security measures the club had taken to crack down on drug use.

"We're trying to make it difficult to sell or even do drugs on the premises," he told theNew York Times in a 1999 interview. "We want people to come here to dance, not to sprawl out on the floor and be a big mess. Sure, the security can be an inconvenience, but then again, so is living in Manhattan."

In an affidavit he submitted during the 2000 lawsuit against the city, Bindra also detailed the extensive lengths Twilo took to the combat the sale of drugs.

"I am also well informed of the extent to which this business has spent money and effort to successfully ensure that the allegations cannot be repeated," he said.

"We are the most professionally operated and safest caberet of its type in the city of New York among them, businesses with allegations of drug dealer employees, shootings and stabbings; yet we alone are faced with closure," he added.

Bindra has been organizing concerts and shows for the past two decade. He and another Miami entrepreneur, Henri Pferdmenges, also ran TriBeCa club Arc, which closed after two years in 2004.

Pferdmenges is currently suing Bindra in Manhattan Federal Court, claiming he was an early investor in the Electric Zoo festival and accusing his former business partner of cheating him out of his share of its profits. Bindra has denied the allegations. 

Jeffrey Russ, 23, and Olivia Rotondo, 21, were the two festival attendees who died Saturday, according to police. The cause of both deaths appear to be linked to MDMA consumption, also known as Molly or Ecstasy, officials said.

A spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner said further toxicology reports and tissue studies were pending to determine the exact cause of death.

Made Event leased the space for the Electronic Zoo festival through the Randall's Island Alliance, the nonprofit conservancy that maintains the city-owned grounds.

The city Parks Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Bindra and his wife Laura Tigz De Palma are the founders of the Electric Zoo music festival.   (Image: Mike Bindra/Via FACEBOOK)  

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The Randall’s Island Park Alliance  (RIPA) recieves a large fee for the event at the same location as the Governor's Ball debacle.   (Photo: Electric Zoo)  RIPA removed all photos of the event from its webpage.

  

By Geoffrey Croft

A 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted at the Electric Zoo Music Festival on Randall's Island NYC Park Advocates has learned.

The teen woke up on Friday under a van in a parking lot with her pants undone and bruises and scratches on her legs, according to several city sources. 

Medical personnel at Cornell Medical Hospital later determined she was sexually assaulted.

The incident is being investigated by the Special Victims Unit.

Two concertgoers died at the planned three-day dance music festival from apparent overdoses on Saturday.   

Syracuse University graduate Jeffrey Russ,  23,  of Rochester, NY died at Harlem Hospital and  University of New Hampshire student, Olivia Rotondo,  20,  of Providence,  R.I.,  died Metropolitan Hospital.

The drug MDMA,  or "Molly," is suspected in the deaths.

Two officers stand watch at the Ward's Island footbridge on Sunday. The NYPD blanketed Randall's Island on Sunday after the  Electric Zoo event was abruptly cancelled. (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates) Click on images to enlarge.

Map of the event.  (RIPA Facebook)

At least four other concertgoers were also hospitalized as well from apparent drug related issues officials said.

Officials cancelled the final day of the Electric Zoo dance music festival, citing “serious health risks, ” on Sunday after the incidents. 

Thirty-one people were also arrested according to the police including two felonies.  Offenses ranged from drug sales, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and possession of controlled substances.  

 A lack of screening for under age concert goers also came under fire from several sources.

"This is ridiculous," said a city employee at the event.  

"All the drug use and under-age activity that goes on here every year and now this. And this year they added a third day. And for what money.  These events have to go.  They are putting the public at risk."

The festival is organized by concert promoter  Made Event,  an organization that has also staged concerts on Governors Island.

The Mayor's office issued a press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PR- 289-13 September 1, 2013 CANCELLATION OF ELECTRIC ZOO MUSIC FESTIVAL ON RANDALL’S ISLAND  Due to serious health risks, the Electric Zoo music festival on Randall's Island on Sunday, September 1st has been cancelled. The City recommended cancellation and the event promoters have agreed.  During the first two days of the Electric Zoo music festival, two concert-goers have died and at least four others became critically ill and have been placed in intensive care at area hospitals. Definitive causes of death have not yet been determined, however, both appear to have involved the drug MDMA (ecstasy, or molly).  The Electric Zoo organizers have worked with City officials to reduce health risks at this event, but in view of these occurrences, the safest course is to cancel the remaining day of the event

Electric Zoo co-founder Mike Bindra's event golf cart sits idle on Sunday.  Binda organized events at McCarren Park Pool location before it was renovated. Additional information is now surfacing regarding illegal drugs at a prior business of Mr. Bindra's, a Chelsea night club.


Randall's Island's largest unprogrammed area of the park has been allowed to be converted into commercial uses for up to five months a year by the Randall's Island Park Alliance in cooperation with the city.




Soccer field converted into a stage. Main Stage East.  "Expanded Grounds For 2nd Main Stage!" the event map boasts. 

Main Stage East.

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