1-3 years in prison for aiding suicide
Judge says sentencing Phoenicia woman was ‘difficult,’ ‘daunting’
The Phoenicia woman who helped her husband commit suicide with a concoction of liquor and pills was sentenced Wednesday to one to three years in state prison.
The sentence handed down by Ulster County Judge Donald A. Williams was more lenient than the term he initially planned to impose, and it means Solane Verraine will spend, at most, the next nine months in state prison because of time already served.
Verraine, 63, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to second-degree manslaughter, admitting that on Nov. 9, 2016, she
crushed more than 90 prescription pills, mixed them into a large cup of brandy, and gave the concoction to her husband John Owings Jr., a musician who went by the stage name Johnny Asia, to drink.
Williams said on the day of the guilty plea that he expected to sentence Verraine to two to six years in prison.
Ulster County Chief Assistant District Attorney Michael Kavanagh initially recommended Verraine be given five years of probation, with the first six months to be served in county jail. When Williams said he wouldn’t consider a sentence that didn’t include state prison time, Kavanagh changed his recommendation to one to three years in a state facility.
The maximum sentence for second-degree manslaughter is five to 15 years in state prison.
Defense attorney Kevin Harp said Verraine regrets what she did and understands her actions “were morally and legally wrong.”
He said that she has used her time in jail “as a period of spiritual deepening and renewal” and now recognizes that her thinking when she helped Owings kill himself was “deeply flawed.”
Verraine has been in Ulster County Jail since her arrest on the day Owings, 65, died inside the couple’s home on state Route 214 in Phoenicia.
Williams, who called the sentencing “one of the most difficult if not daunting responsibilities that has been placed on my shoulders since I took the bench,” said he was swayed to hand down a relatively lenient
sentence because “the facts have evolved.”
“The court has become privy to reports that [Owings] was often left in excruciating pain, that he was slowly killing himself, and that toward the end of his life was left in critical condition,” the judge said.
Additionally, he said, authorities found “no evidence of malicious intent or evilmindedness” by Verraine.
“There is no other motive, no financial gain, no animosity, no hostility, no evidence whatsoever of any evil state of mind,” Williams said.
It would be “easy,” the judge said, to follow his heart, and “tempting” to order Verraine’s immediate release, but he said to do so would be to inject his own opinions into the proceedings.
Williams said the sentence needed to both hold Verraine accountable for her
actions and send a message to others that “such grave conduct” cannot be tolerated. At the same time, though, he said he hopes the sentence will ignite a debate “a deeper and more thoughtful discussion” in
the state Legislature about assisted suicide, which currently is illegal in New York.
Defense attorney John Ingrassia called the sentence “exceedingly fair.”
Verraine initially was charged with second-degree
murder, but the grand jury hearing her case opted to indict her for the less-serious charge of manslaughter.
The indictment accused Verraine of “intentionally causing or aiding John Owings Jr. to commit suicide.”