Mother charged with assault of her unborn
A Butler woman, charged with overdosing on heroin while seven months pregnant, was formally arraigned in Butler County Court on Tuesday.
Kasey R. Dischman, 30, was charged with felony aggravated assault of an unborn child following her alleged June 22 overdose.
Dischman was seven months pregnant at the time of the incident, causing her to undergo a cesarean section and deliver a baby girl prematurely, who required life support for at least a week and will suffer lasting injuries from her exposure to heroin, police said.
The medical condition of the child is unknown at this time.
Police said the incident occurred on June 22, just over a week after Dischman had been released from the Butler County Prison for serving six months on a felony retail theft charge, when she injected a bag of heroin found beneath her couch.
She then allegedly overdosed on the floor of her bathroom. She was later found by her boyfriend and children's father, 36-year-old Andrew Lucas, who called 911.
Paramedics told police when they arrived, Dischman had a closed head injury and was vomiting with seizure-like activity, according to court documents.
Lucas denied there was drug activity at the home, but police said he later acknowledged when they brought him in for a urine test that he had used heroin.
Dischman was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital, where she went into cardiac arrest, before being flown to UPMC Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh and subsequently placed on a ventilator. While there, blood work determined that opioids were in her system and she was then transferred to UPMC Magee-Women's Hospital in Pittsburgh, undergoing the emergency C-section.
Police said Dischman later would also admit that she injected herself with heroin she found under the couch.
The Commonwealth is also seeking additional charges, including misdemeanor endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors and possession of a controlled substance, based on evidence that her 6-year-old daughter was also present in the home at the time of the overdose, and that a hypodermic needle was found following the incident.
She is scheduled for a hearing on those new charges Wednesday.
Judge William Shaffer previously denied a habeas corpus motion filed by Dischman's attorney, Public Defender Joseph Smith, which attempted to have the felony charge dismissed, arguing that the criminal statute under which she is charged — the Crimes Against the Unborn Child Act — contains language that expressly exempts pregnant women from prosecution for harming their own unborn children.
Following her arrest, Dischman was resentenced to six months in the Butler County Prison, where she is also being held on $500,000 cash bail in this case, for a parole violation stemming from the overdose.
