Heroin mom sentenced to home monitoring
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » An Upper Darby woman who pleaded guilty to theft and child endangerment charges in September was sentenced to six to 23 months Monday with the minimum to be served on electronic home monitoring.
Sandra DiCianno, 31, will also receive credit time for a short prison stint and inpatient treatment under the sentence handed down by Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Richard N. Cappelli.
DiCianno and her husband were rescued from heroin overdoses by their 4-year-old son in June. She entered open guilty pleas to two charges of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor of the first degree, and possession of a controlled substance, an ungraded misdemeanor. DiCianno also pleaded guilty under a separate case to one count of forgery, a felony of the first degree, and one count of theft by unlawful taking, a first-degree misdemeanor.
DiCianno was discovered in the bathroom of the house she shared with 32-year-old Sean Dolhancryk in the 7000 block of Greenwood Avenue a little after 8 p.m. on June 7 by Police Officer Robert Bennett, who responded to a call after a neighbor heard the young boy calling for help.
The 4-year-old opened the door and directed Bennett to a bathroom, telling him, “Mommy is upstairs, she is sick.”
Bennett heard gargled breathing coming from inside the bathroom but could not open the door, which was blocked by Dolhancryk’s body. Dolhancryk was “completely blue,” according to Bennett, and DiCianno was curled up on the floor making a gargling noise.
Officer Kevin Donohue arrived and assisted in keeping the 4-year old and a sibling out of the way until he and Bennett could push the door open. Dolhancryk was pulled out first and administered Narcan, the drug used to counter the effects of opioids. Paramedics also administered Narcan to DiCianno and gave Dolhancryk additional doses of the drug.
The children were taken to a neighbor’s house before being turned over to relatives by the county Children and Youth Services. Officers later discovered hypodermic needles and other paraphernalia related to heroin use in the bathroom. The parents were treated at a hospital and released to police.
Dolhancryk previously pleaded guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of children and one count of possessing a controlled substance. He said at sentencing in August that he and DiCianno began using heroin in 2013, but the couple stopped for about two years before his wife reintroduced them to it.
Dolhancryk, represented by defense counsel Matt Sprague, was sentenced to six to 23 months at the county prison in Concord in the heroin case, as well as three consecutive months for a probation violation. He was also given five years of consecutive probation and ordered to comply with the recommendations of a drug and alcohol evaluation.
The theft charges for DiCianno involved four checks totaling $425 that were taken from her former employer, a neighbor. The victim was contacted by TD Bank April 11 and asked if DiCianno had authorization to cash checks on his account. He informed the bank that he had not written DiCianno any checks and a fraud investigation was initiated.
The victim also contacted the Lansdowne Police Department, which found four unauthorized checks had been cashed between December 2016 and April 2017. Surveillance photos showed DiCianno cashing each of the checks, according to an affidavit of probable cause.
The victim told investigators DiCianno would clean his apartment for $10 per hour on an as-needed basis, but he always paid her in cash. He also told Cappelli Monday that he had given DiCianno a $100 advance for work that was never performed.
DiCianno apologized to that victim, saying she was not the person that she wanted to be in committing the theft and that it hurt her that she had hurt him.
She also told the judge she had done a “90/90” program in which she went to 90 meetings in 90 days and is now 140 days clean. DiCianno said she continues to attend three to four meetings a week.
Defense attorney Nusrat J. Rashid noted the two children now live with DiCianno and her two brothers in Philadelphia, where she works for a pizza shop. Children and Youth Services briefly placed the children with DiCianno’s mother, but have since closed the case, Rashid said.
Assistant District Attorney Brian Doherty argued that this case demanded some jail time as a punishment and deterrent from future similar conduct. He said the children very well might have witnessed their parents’ deaths if not for the quick actions neighbor and police.
DiCianno said she is trying to be present in the moment for her children and continue dealing with the issues that brought her to heroin in the first place. Rashid said Dolhancryk will not live with her client upon his release.
“I am super ashamed of what happened,” DiCianno told the judge. “My children are my life and even now, coming today, I am trying to be as strong and as brave as I can, because I know that I deserve to get punished. I understand that, I know what I did was wrong. But I’m all they have.”
In addition to home monitoring, DiCianno was ordered to continue receiving treatment. Cappelli also ordered her serve five years of probation, repay the victim in the theft case $525, attend parenting classes and comply with the recommendations of a drug and alcohol evaluation. DiCianno will also perform 100 hours of community service and take parenting classes. of a
DiCianno and her husband were rescued from heroin overdoses by their 4-year-old son in June. She entered open guilty pleas to two charges of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor of the first degree, and possession of a controlled substance, an ungraded misdemeanor. DiCianno also pleaded guilty under a separate case to one count of forgery, a felony of the first degree, and one count of theft by unlawful taking, a first-degree misdemeanor.