Karen Dobner says her son, who died in a car accident in North Aurora after having a bad reaction to synthetic marijuana in June of 2011, would have been happy lives have been saved because of raised awareness about fake marijuana. (Denise Crosby, The Beacon-News)
Well, maybe "move on" is not quite the right phrase … "attain closure," perhaps.
Or "find peace."
Next month – June 14 to be exact – will mark five years since her 19-year-old son Max was killed when the car he was driving, traveling at a high rate of speed down Mooseheart Road, slammed into a North Aurora home on Route 31 after he experienced a horrific reaction to synthetic marijuana.
Dobner went on national television in the weeks that followed and became one of the nation's most vocal and effective crusaders in the fight against fake pot.
It's hard to do … this moving on stuff, she told me, when you are talking about the death of a child. And it doesn't help that the cases against those authorities say are responsible continue to move through the courts.
The civil stuff against the owners of the Fox Valley Mall's Cigar Shop that sold $20 worth of iAroma Hypnotic to her son, as well as the Iowa man accused of manufacturing and selling it over the Internet, were settled a year and a half ago.
Now there's the criminal charges to deal with, and that's a lot more important to Dobner.
It took years of exhausting efforts for this determined mother to find an agency to go after those involved. Dobner says she unsuccessfully petitioned Kane and DuPage counties and the Illinois Attorney General's Office.
Synthetic marijuana is a tough nut for the legal system to crack because these so-called designer drugs can easily be manipulated by manufacturers to avoid the controlled substance list.
But Dobner, as anyone knows who has been following her story, does not give up easily. Thanks in large part to her persistence, local laws against fake pot stiffened, and in 2012 Springfield passed "Max's Law" that made it a felony to sell or possess synthetic marijuana.
That statute has become a model for other states attempting to get this deadly stuff off store shelves. Still, it wasn't until the summer of 2014, she says, that this case finally caught the attention of the feds, in particular, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matt Schneider who works out of the Northern Illinois Office.
Felony indictments were filed in April of last year for conspiracy to distribute substance analogues against Cigar Store owner Ruby Mohsin of Glen Ellyn, along with employee Mohammad Khan of Glendale Heights. A trial day is expected to be set this summer.
And on May 19, Kevin Seydel of Bettendorf, Iowa, was indicted in federal court in Chicago for manufacturing the synthetic marijuana sold to Max through two Internet companies, Spaced Out Herbs and Always 4 Less.
According to the indictment, he sold products falsely labeled as "potpourri," "herbal incense" and other misleading names to out of state customers, including hundreds of packages labeled as Zero Gravity, Train Wreck and iAroma to the Cigar Box in Aurora. The packaging was labeled not for human consumption but according to the indictment, Seydel intended for the product to be used as drugs.
In the deposition filed in the civil case against Seydel, he described himself as a retired plumber/pipefitter on disability following a bad car accident, who formed a company to manufacture iAroma and other products. He claimed his products were to be used as potpourri or incense.
According to the deposition, Seydel purchased the chemical from China that was dissolved into liquid form using acetone. He then used a bug sprayer and Rubbermaid containers to enhance an herb known as marshmallow leaf.
"It didn't take much to do it," he said in the deposition.
Dobner plans to be in court Wednesday when Seydel is arraigned ... and for proceedings against all involved, including a North Carolina man also indicted. After five years of seeking justice after the death of her son, it is now in the hands of the judicial system. And no matter what the outcome, Dobson seems ready to finally move on.
That included plans a year ago to move from Aurora to tiny Millbrook, in search of peace and quiet after such a long stint in the spotlight. But after that real estate deal fell through at the last minute, Dobner purchased a fixer upper on a few acres in Oswego with the goal of soon bringing a couple of horses to her property.
Dobner has, for the most part, shut down To The Maximus Foundation, which was created in the immediate aftermath of her son's death. The money left in this not-for-profit treasury will eventually be distributed to local organizations battling the drug issue, she told me.
While fake pot is at least now under control here, Dobner added, "we have a terrible heroin problem that can't be ignored."
That fight, however, will be for others to wage.
Had Max died earlier, Dobner is convinced no one would likely have paid much attention to the synthetic marijuana problem. Had he died later, she believes her efforts would have made little impact, as seems to be the case in other states that are reporting hospitalizations and fatalities from synthetic drugs on the rise.
"Max always wanted to use his life to help others," Dobner has stressed to me time and again since we first began talking back in June of 2011.
Thanks to his mom, in death he has certainly fulfilled that goal.
"More than he could ever have imagined," his mother added. "He paid the ultimate price. But we know because of what he and our family went through, others in this community are safer."
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