Drug dealer gets 5-10 years in jail for fentanyl death
MEDIA COURTHOUSE » An Upper Chichester woman was sentenced to five to 10 years in a state prison Friday after pleading guilty to delivering a fatal dose of fentanyllaced heroin to a 35-year-old Boothwyn woman in 2017.
Ashley Lynn May, 33, entered a negotiated guilty plea to one count of drug delivery resulting in death, a felony of the first degree, before Common Pleas Court Judge Dominic Pileggi. The plea worked out by Deputy District Attorney Laurie Moore and defense counsel Jeffrey Bauer did not include probation or any other conditions.
May, of the 900 block of Kingsman Road, was arrested in October 2019, nearly two years after the victim’s death, following an investigation by the Upper Chichester Police Department, and detectives Timothy Deery and David Tyler of the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office Criminal Investigation Division.
Upper Chichester police and emergency services personnel responded to a residence on the first block of Mulberry Street in Boothwyn for a medical emergency at 1:41 p.m. Nov. 8, 2017.
The victim, Tiffany Minchella, was pronounced dead at the scene. Lying near her body were three blue glassine bags containing white powder, one open blue glassine bag containing white powder that was half empty, a cell phone and a bag containing syringes.
Laboratory testing revealed the presence of heroin and fentanyl in the powder. A post-mortem examination determined Minchella’s cause of death was drug intoxication, including fentanyl.
A forensic examination of the victim’s cellphone and other evidence including video surveillance established May as the drug dealer who delivered the fentanyl-laced heroin that resulted in Minchella’s death.
May admitted to detectives Deery and Tyler during an interview Oct. 8, 2019, that she had picked Minchella up the morning of her death and delivered three or four bags of heroin before dropping her off near her home.
“My world completely crumbled when I heard the words, ‘Your sister is gone,’” said Brena Minchella in court Friday. “I was completely numb and I was completely lost.”
Brena Minchella said her sister had been clean for about five years before her death and that May’s own status as an addict should not justify her actions. Whether the death was intended or not, she said, there needs to be accountability, but Brena and other family members said May had never come forward or cooperated on her own and had shown no remorse.
“Five to ten is not enough for her,” said Tiffany’s mother, Tina. “She took my daughter.”
Minchella’s father, Daniel, said in a letter to the court read by Moore Friday that while May might have five years of her life taken from her, his daughter had 50 years or more ahead of her and that May continued selling drugs with no apparent remorse for another two years.
“I don’t understand the court system,” he said in the letter. “When someone gets shot, it’s a big deal, but when someone plays Russian roulette for $15 it’s not much. It sure seems like their life doesn’t matter, like they don’t count.”
He said he could not listen to music anymore because it reminds him too much of his daughter, whose picture he sometimes stares at for minutes at a time just trying to keep her memory fresh in his mind.
“A piece of my heart is gone,” he said. “Justice is not being done.”
Minchella’s partner, Danielle Wright, said that while they had been together only a short time, she had shown her what love was. Wright said Minchella was going to meetings, making plans for the future and “taking every step to stay clean.”
“Having a weak moment is something that happens sometimes with addicts,” said Wright. “Even though she might have had a weak moment, that doesn’t justify her life being taken.”
Bauer noted his client did not have a prior record score and had expressed remorse to him multiple times in their meetings. He said May had a rough childhood and was suffering from a litany of mental health issues including anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, for which she had been recommended to attend inpatient treatment.
“I don’t believe Miss May to be evil,” he said. “I don’t believe this was perpetrated with the intent to harm or kill. Knowing that my client was a current user as well as someone who had passed three bags along to the decedent, I don’t suspect and I submit to the court that Miss May’s intention was not to end that woman’s life. It wasn’t.”
May, appearing via closed-circuit television from the county prison, also gave a brief apology to the family and reiterated that she never meant for anything to happen to Minchella.
In addition to the prison sentence, May was ordered to submit a DNA sample to state police. She will be given credit for time served to Sept. 20, 2019.