Anguished PA sheriff who lost son to fentanyl explains why Sen. Bob Casey failed his family with lax border policies

EBENSBURG, Pennsylvania — Blair County Sheriff Jim Ott is a big, burly guy who has spent his life in law enforcement.

But he still can’t talk about losing his son Josh to a fentanyl overdose without getting upset.

“I thought I was being a good dad,” Ott said while on the verge of tears. “People tell you time heals all wounds. It don’t.”

The central Pennsylvania lawman said although he wishes he could go back and stop the 33-year-old from ever using drugs in the first place, he knows in his heart there’s only one solution.

“What we do have control of is trying to reduce” the spread he told The Post.

But instead of taking meaningful steps towards actually achieving that goal, “We relaxed the border. We opened up our borders. We made it easier for illegals to come in,” he fumed.

By lowering these standards, Ott says, “it has made it easier for the cartels to push poison across the border.”

That’s why Ott is speaking out against Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and other Democrats, whom he believes have helped create the open borders that have allowed the powerful narcotic to flood across the border — killing 100,000 Americans last year alone.

Ott is the face of a gut-wrenching new ad for Casey’s opponent in November, Republican Dave McCormick, that takes aim at Casey for his border policies — and seeks to tie him to the drug scourge that has ravaged rural Pennsylvania.

He slammed Casey for failing to secure the border during 17 years in the Senate.

“What we’ve done this far doesn’t seem to be working,” he said. “Do we continue to have the same players in place?”

He believes McCormick will “take a harder stance” on the border and “provide the tools” to border patrol and the DEA “to go after” the cartels and stop the fentanyl from coming in.

“You’re not going to eliminate addiction that way, but you’ll certainly make it more difficult to get the poisons out there,” Ott said.

In a lengthy sit-down with The Post, Ott shared the gut-wrenching memory of hearing the “bloodcurdling cries of his family” when they found Josh dead in April 2020.

He said he had worked hard to try to save his son from the addiction, telling him: “You’re either gonna go to jail. Die. Or both.”

Ott also revealed his fury that he did not have enough evidence to lock up Josh’s dealer when he finally tracked him down.

“I told him he’s lucky to be alive,” he recalled.

Ott believes Casey has been slow to tackle the fentanyl epidemic. Casey was a co-sponsor of the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, to crack down on the trafficking of fentanyl and its precursors by transnational criminal organizations, including Mexican cartels.

“When did that come out? April 2024. When was it known we had an issue? Why did we wait til now?” he said.

Ott said the very same soft-on-migrant crime policies are an important contrast for Americans to choose between this November.

“Under the Trump administration, I think the direction was to make a more secure border,” he said, praising the former president’s record on curtailing illegal crossings.

“Under the Biden administration, those steps taken to move forward were moved backward,” he said.

The only way to reduce the amount of lethal drugs from crossing into US soil, Ott said, is through robust border controls and an administration that will enforce the law.

“I’m not saying Bob Casey killed my son,” Ott said.

“I’m saying that the poison that made it across the borders, and the poison that is in our community, and the lack of safety of what is coming across our borders falls to the current leaders we have, and he happens to be one of them.”

“No family should ever have that call,” he said, looking at a photo of his son.

“That their loved one died of an overdose because of the poison that is making it into this country.”