Immediate parole ordered in woman's drug delivery case
After pleading guilty earlier in April to drug distribution, a woman was immediately paroled on her county prison sentence Thursday in Butler County Court.
Sanya L. Vantassel, 41, was sentenced to 3 to 12 months in Butler County Prison by Judge William Shaffer, and was immediately paroled. She was also ordered to pay court costs.
Vantassel pleaded guilty April 3 to felony possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.
Police said Vantassel sold 10 stamp bags of heroin and an “8 ball” of crack cocaine on Feb. 18, 2016, on North Street. An 8 ball is about one-eighth of an ounce of crack.
The plea came after a hearing in March where Shaffer ordered that the identity of the confidential informant used in the case be disclosed.
During the March hearing, a state trooper testified that he was working undercover with the state police vice unit when a confidential informant attempted to set up a drug buy with an individual, who reported that he wasn’t available and referred the informant to another contact named “Sonya.”
The trooper said the informant was familiar with that individual and contacted her and coordinated a transaction. During the transaction, he testified that he drove both the informant and “Sonya” to a home in the 300 block of North Street to purchase crack cocaine, before driving to a home in the 200 block of Cecilia Street to purchase heroin.
Later, he testified, “Sonya” was identified as Sonya Drake using Facebook photos that were shown to other officers, and charges were filed. Those charges were later withdrawn after police concluded that the suspect was in fact not Sonya Drake.
Vantassel was later identified and the trooper said he was “confident” Vantassel was the person in the vehicle at the time of the transactions.
“I can tell you now that she was the individual who was in the backseat of my car,” he said, identifying a unique piercing Vantassel has. Vantassel’s attorney, Rebecca Black, argued during that hearing that several officers misidentified the suspect and the only person in contact with the suspect was the confidential informant, and the identity of that informant was important to crafting a defense in the case.
