Wayne County Jury Awards $75 Million Over MDMA Overdose Death of Denis Preka, Michigan's Largest Single-Death Verdict

On the night of March 19, 2019, 21-year-old Denis Preka wanted Adderall to help him study. The pills he swallowed were not Adderall. They were MDMA, the street drug known as Molly, supplied by Nicholas Remington and passed off as the study aid Preka had asked for. The dose was extreme. Testing later showed roughly 80 times a fatal amount of MDMA in his body. "It was 80 times the amount of a fatal dose of MDMA that was found in his system," his stepfather, Jamie Thom, said.

Preka did not die quickly. He suffered for hours. The people who were with him recorded his distress and posted the footage on Snapchat, treating a medical emergency as a recreational high. No one got him help in time. He left behind his mother and stepfather, Linda and Jamie Thom, who would later sit through a trial built around the last hours of their son's life.

The family hired the Mike Morse Law Firm. The civil case, Estate of Denis Preka v. Nicholas Remington, was tried in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit before Judge Susan Hubbard, Case No. 20-004100-NO. Attorneys Mike Morse, Christopher Filiatraut, and Eric Simpson handled it for the family. Their proof centered on a single point: Remington knew the pills were MDMA, told Preka they were Adderall, and that lie set the overdose in motion.

The legal team framed the conduct as willful and wanton rather than a careless moment among friends. They walked the jury through the toxicology, the hours Preka spent in crisis, and the decision by those around him to film the scene instead of calling 911. They asked the jury to value both the suffering of a young man who knew he was dying and the permanent loss to his parents.

On August 8, 2024, the jury returned $75 million. The award split into $40 million for Preka's conscious pain and suffering, $20 million to his parents for the loss of their son's companionship, and $15 million in exemplary damages for Remington's willful and wanton conduct. Reporters described it as the largest verdict for a single death in Michigan history.

One detail tempered the headline number. A second man, Paul Wiedmaier, had settled with the family before trial and was assigned 20 percent of the fault, which left Remington responsible for roughly $60 million of the total. The verdict was later appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals.