Washington woman pleads guilty to lesser charge in overdose death
A Washington woman who was in possession of a deadly batch of fentanyl that killed a man when he overdosed in Mt. Pleasant Township nearly three years ago pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge and was sentenced to jail.
Amber Joy Elcyzyn appeared in Washington County Court of Common Pleas before Senior Judge Katherine Emery and represented herself without an attorney present during the plea hearing in connection with 41-year-old Sean Thomas Caldwell’s overdose death in 2023.
“Do you have a clear head as you stand here?” Emery asked the defendant.
“Yes, your honor,” said Elcyzyn, who was shackled and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit.
Elcyzyn, 38, had been facing a felony charge of drug delivery resulting in death for being one of three people in the supply chain of the lethal batch of fentanyl-laced cocaine given to Caldwell, who ingested it in his mother’s Mt. Pleasant Township home’s bathroom, where she found him dead Oct. 4, 2023.
Elcyzyn accepted a negotiated offer from Washington County Deputy District Attorney John Friedmann and pleaded guilty to felony possession of fentanyl, and Emery immediately sentenced her to serve 150 days in jail followed by five years on probation. Elcyzyn also pleaded guilty to felony receiving stolen property and misdemeanor defiant trespassing in two other unrelated cases, and Emery ordered her to pay $2,500 in restitution and sentenced her to concurrent jail time and probation.
Elcyzyn has been jailed for about 90 days on two separate occasions following her arrest in April 2024, so she will be given credit for time served and likely be out of jail in about two months.
“This is hard, but after getting out and (staying) clean is also hard,” Emery said.
“Yes, your honor,” Elcyzyn said.
Two other people charged in Caldwell’s death already pleaded guilty for their roles in his overdose.
Crystal Carson, 36, of Washington, pleaded guilty last April to felony drug delivery resulting in death and was sentenced by President Judge Valarie Costanzo to serve six to 12 years in a state prison. John Stephen Backner, 59, of Chartiers Township, pleaded guilty last March to the same drug delivery resulting in death charge as Carson, but he was sentenced to one year of house arrest and given credit for time served for the six months he spent in the Washington County jail.
Investigators previously said Backner purchased the drugs from Elcyzyn, who told police that she purchased them from Carson.