DRAPER MAN GETS YEAR IN JAIL FOR ROLE IN HEROIN DEATH

WEST JORDAN - Jasen Calacino, a 20-year-old Draper man who last year
helped dispose of the body of a young woman who died of a heroin
overdose, was sentenced Wednesday to a year in jail.

But first, Calacino got a lecture from the victim's mother about why
the crime can be so devastating to family members. Kathryn Sorich
said that after 18-year-old Amelia Sorich disappeared, she and her
family lived with terror of the unknown until a passerby discovered
the body in the foothills above Bountiful. Then the family had to
deal with the reality of her death, as well as the grisly fact that
after two days of exposure to sun and insects, Amelia's remains were
ravaged beyond the restoration powers of any mortician. She said
Amelia's funeral was a closed-casket affair.

Amelia died the night of June 25, 2005, after her friend, 18-year-old
Macall Petersen, twice injected her with a mixture of heroin and
cocaine, known as a speedball. When Calacino - who was Petersen's
boyfriend - discovered the unconscious teen, he tried to revive her
with CPR. And although Calacino at one point picked up a phone
intending to call 911, Petersen talked him out of it - afraid
exposure of their drug use would violate her juvenile probation agreement.

Calacino helped Petersen by carrying the body to the victim's car,
driving to Davis County and hiding the body under some weeds.
Calacino and Macall left the victim's car in a North Salt Lake
parking lot and threw the dead woman's cell phone and purse into a trash bin.

Earlier this year, Petersen pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony
desecration charge and one count of negligent homicide, a class A
misdemeanor. Third District Judge Royal Hansen sent her to prison for
up to six years.

On Wednesday, Hansen agreed Calacino - who had pleaded guilty to
third-degree felony desecration of a dead human body - was less
culpable than Petersen, but still needed to be punished. A year in
jail "sends a message to everyone that what you did won't be
tolerated," the judge told Calacino. Calacino must also complete 36
months of probation by paying a $1,000 fine, completing thinking
errors class and paying restitution.

Prosecutor Sean Torriente had asked for "some" jail time, but said
one of the state's major goals was obtaining a felony conviction. The
prosecutor said that because of a recent rash of overdose/body
dumpings, his office has adopted a policy of refusing to plea-bargain
desecration cases.

He said defendants can plead as charged or go to trial. Torriente
noted that because his recommendation for Petersen had been a year in
jail, his recommendation for Calacino was for less than a year.

Calacino's defense attorney, Greg Skordas, had argued strenuously
against any jail time. Skordas said Calacino had been "straight up
from Day 1" by turning himself in to police, admitting his actions,
pleading guilty as charged and even meeting with the victim's mother
to answer questions about the case.

Calacino apologized to the Sorich family, saying he hoped they could
one day forgive him, and he promised he would never again break the
law. He said that on the night Amelia Sorich died, his "first
instinct" had been to call police. "Now I'll have to live with that," he said.

After the hearing, Kathryn Sorich told news reporters that during her
meeting with Calacino, he had diagrammed Petersen's kitchen and where
he had found Amelia's body. Sorich said she now believes a gash on
her daughter's forehead was inflicted by Petersen, because the injury
could not have come from falling and hitting a countertop.

"I'm convinced that Amelia was unconscious when Macall injected her
[with drugs]," Sorich said. She said she believes Petersen injected
her daughter out of spite because of a phone call Amelia had made to
Petersen's father, which resulted in Petersen's going back to
juvenile detention. Petersen's attorney claims Amelia asked Petersen
for the drugs.