Husband, wife facing involuntary manslaughter | Local News

JEFFERSON — The county prosecutor’s office continues its approach of seeking involuntary manslaughter charges against those it determines are responsible for providing drugs leading to fatal overdoses.

Most recently, a husband and wife from Ashtabula, both of whom are also believed to be drug users, are facing such charges after being accused of selling fentanyl to a Rock Creek woman who died in November.

Co-defendants Alicia Shaye Trent and Billy James Lewis Trent, both of Ashtabula, were indicted on two counts of complicity to involuntary manslaughter, both first-degree felonies; complicity to corrupting another with drugs, a second-degree felony; complicity to trafficking in a fentanyl-related compound, a fifth-degree felony; and complicity to trafficking in heroin, a fifth-degree felony.

Kristin Kranauer, 36, of Rock Creek was found unresponsive in her car in the Ashtabula County District Library parking lot Nov. 3. Her death was ruled a fentanyl overdose by the Ashtabula County coroner’s office.

The Trents were friends of Kranauer and her drug supplier, County Prosecutor Nicholas Iarocci said.

“It is alleged that the Trents were complicit in supplying Ms. Kranauer the drugs that caused her death,” Iarocci said.

Over the past several years seven people have been prosecuted on manslaughter charges in similar cases, which carries with it a sentence of three to 10 years in prison.

Officials, who are attacking the opiate epidemic on a number of different fronts, believe the investigation and prosecution of such cases is having an effect and serving as a deterrent, Iarocci said.

The result has been a reduction in the number of overdose deaths, Iarocci said, though he added every death cannot be investigated because of a shortage of resources and evidentiary obstacles.

“Law enforcement cannot simply sit on our hands and not investigate these deaths,” he said. “If someone is found to be a part of the supply chain of drugs that caused another’s overdose death, we will charge and aggressively prosecute that person for manslaughter and other applicable criminal charges.”