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Woman pleads to 8 cases

Shayna M. McDowell
Agreement calls for prison time

A Butler woman set to stand trial in a drug delivery case pleaded guilty in that case and seven others in Butler County Court on Wednesday.

Shayna M. McDowell, 32, pleaded guilty to five counts of felony possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance — heroin, and one count each of misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child, recklessly endangering another person and possession of drug paraphernalia in eight cases before Judge Timothy McCune.

McDowell was set to begin the trial Thursday in one of the drug delivery cases.

The plea agreements call for a total sentence of two to seven years in state prison, restitution, fines, and 50 hours of community service. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 5.

District Attorney Richard Goldinger said a ninth drug delivery case, which was filed earlier this month and is awaiting a preliminary hearing, will be withdrawn as part of the agreement.

“The agreement was always to withdraw those charges,” he said. “This is substantial state time she will be serving on these other cases.”

She was initially also charged with several related counts in each case, all of which are to be dismissed as part of the plea.

The first incident occurred on March 20, 2013, in Butler, when police say she delivered 10 stamp bags of heroin.

Another incident occurred in Butler Township on July 22, 2015, when police said she delivered heroin.

The third case involved heroin delivery in Butler on Sept. 16, 2015. Police said McDowell sold 18 stamp bags of heroin to a police informant for $180 at a parking lot on West Jefferson Street.

The next case involved possession of paraphernalia — a metal spoon, syringe and pipe — in Butler on Sept. 18, 2015. Vice officers allege in that case that she had 11 stamp bags of heroin hidden in her bra when she was arrested at a West Jefferson Street apartment building that was under police surveillance for drug activity.

Following a search warrant, 11 more bags of heroin, 41 syringes, a drug-cooking spoon and drug-smoking pipe were found.

The child endangerment count comes from an incident in Butler on May 21, 2016, when police said she fell asleep while baby-sitting an infant boy, who was later found outside wandering in the street, dressed in a diaper and a T-shirt.

Police spoke to the boy's father at the home. He said that he had left his son in McDowell's care. An officer went upstairs and found the defendant, who lives at the house, in bed sleeping.

Another heroin delivery case occurred in Butler on July 5, 2016, when police said McDowell sold an informant $80 worth of heroin.

The final drug delivery case occurred the following day, July 6, 2016, in Butler, when Butler County Drug Task Force said she sold a police informant heroin for $40 at Butler Memorial Park.

And the last case occurred in Butler Township on May 16, 2017, when police said she hit a Butler Township officer with a car during an apparent getaway at the Point Plaza shopping center on New Castle Road.

Officers responding to a 911 hang-up were directed to an apparently intoxicated woman, later identified as McDowell.

While the officers spoke to McDowell and another woman in the car, the defendant allegedly put the car in reverse and backed out of a parking space.

In doing so, one officer was pinched between the vehicle and a parked car. The officer was able to roll up and onto the hood of the suspect vehicle to avoid serious injury, documents state.

The vehicle then sped off, before McDowell abandoned it and took off running into a wooded area around Alameda Park.

She was later arrested in Summit Township.

Police said they searched McDowell and found her with 76 stamp bags of suspected heroin — five in her pocket and 71 in her bra.

McDowell admitted that she was on her way to sell someone the five bags she had in her pocket, documents state.

Those charges are contained in the case that will be withdrawn as part of the plea.

She is being held in the Butler County Prison on a combined $64,000 bail.

She also has past multiple convictions for possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia in 2005, 2006 and 2015 and DUI in 2010.

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