Austin Harmon

Almost a year after being charged for helping supply a woman with a fatal drug dose, a 24-year-old Butler man accepted a plea deal that calls for prison time.

Austin G. Harmon, 24, was arrested in March 2019 on a number of charges, including a top count of drug delivery resulting in death — the equivalent of third-degree murder under state law — for the death of 30-year-old Chanté Elise Nee in late January 2019.

On Monday, Harmon pleaded guilty to possession with intent to deliver, and all the other charges were dropped. The plea deal calls for a prison sentence of five to 10 years. Harmon has spent nearly a year awaiting trial in Butler County Prison on $100,000 bail.

Assistant District Attorney Ben Simon, who prosecuted the case, said the death of Nee was an aggravating circumstance in the case, allowing a judge to sentence Harmon above the sentencing guidelines. Harmon will be sentenced later this month by Common Pleas Judge Timothy McCune.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office and Butler police conducted the joint investigation that led to the charges.

City police and Butler Ambulance Service found Nee dead of an apparent drug overdose after being called to her apartment on the 200 block of West Brady Street.

Investigators said police found stamp bags at the scene — some blue and some white — that they suspected contained heroin.

The blue bags were marked “Good Work.” One of those bags was empty, one had a little residue in it and five other bags were still full. The white bags, which were marked with a different name, were all empty.

Police seized the bags as well as a syringe and Nee's cell phone. An autopsy subsequently ruled Nee died of combined drug toxicity of heroin and fentanyl, investigators said.

Later, state police crime lab analysis determined the white bags contained heroin and fentanyl; the blue bags contained heroin, fentanyl and tramadol.