Nurse who was also an addict gets prison for supplying fatal dose of fentanyl to friend

A licensed practical nurse in Erie is headed to state prison for up to 11 years for injecting a friend with a fatal dose of fentanyl.

The defendant, Jennifer L. Wolf, was not acting in a professional capacity with the victim, 45-year-old Adam J. Esper, who died at his residence in Millcreek Township in September.

Wolf and Esper were both addicts, and Wolf supplied Esper with illegal drugs — including the fentanyl that led to his overdose death.

"I just want to say, I lost my friend in this," Wolf, 49, said at her sentencing hearing in Erie County Common Pleas Court on Friday.

"It was all about using," Wolf said. "I didn't want anyone to get hurt."

Judge David Ridge sentenced Wolf to 5½ to 11 years in state prison for her guilty plea to the first-degree felony of a drug delivery resulting in death.

The District Attorney's Office and the defense agreed to the sentence as part of a plea deal. A conviction for drug delivery resulting in death carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in state prison, though the state sentencing guidelines typically call for a sentence that is less than the maximum to account for a defendant's guilty plea and prior record.

The sentencing guidelines for Wolf put her minimum standard range sentence at about six months more than the sentence she received, said the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Charles Cantrell. He said the District Attorney's Office agreed to the minimum sentence of 5½ years in consultation with Esper's family, who he said wanted a plea deal to avoid reliving Esper's death at trial.

"No one wins," Cantrell said of Esper's death in court. "It is a tragic loss, and unfortunately it comes to this."

Esper's father was in court but did not address Ridge.

Video surveillance key evidence in fatal drug-delivery case

In an interview, Cantrell said Wolf and Esper knew each other as friends and that both were addicted to illegal drugs. He said she acted as a "middleman" who delivered the drugs to him even as she worked as a licensed practical nurse.

Wolf was also charged with having cocaine at Esper's residence. The cocaine count and four other drug-related counts were dropped as part of the deal that Wolf accepted when she pleaded guilty in March to the count of drug delivery resulting in death. That count involves what is described in court records as a mixture of heroin and fentanyl, though Cantrell focused on the fentanyl in court.

Millcreek police charged Wolf six days after Esper died on Sept. 20. On that date, officers dispatched to Esper's house in the 1000 block of Western Lane found him deceased, fully clothed and lying face-down on his bed, according to the affidavit of probable cause attached to the criminal complaint for Wolf.

Using footage from video surveillance cameras, police developed Wolf as the suspect who injected fentanyl into Esper's arm at 2:55 a.m. on Sept. 20, according to the affidavit. The video captured the entire episode, according to the affidavit, which states that police also used call logs and a cash app as evidence to make the arrest.

Esper was bedridden due to medical problems and most likely had the video cameras in his bedroom to help others monitor him, Cantrell said in an interview. According to the coroner's report, Esper "had a history of drug abuse, seizures and ambulatory dysfunction."

The report also states that Esper was taking the painkiller oxycodone and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. He had prescriptions for both, according to the report.

'Not a typical drug-delivery situation'

Oxycodone and fentanyl are both opioids. But, as Wolf said in court, she supplied the synthetic opioid fentanyl to Esper because of his addiction and not for therapeutic reasons. She said she was an addict herself and that Esper was her friend with whom she used drugs.

Their relationship made the case unique. Ridge said he took the relationship into consideration when he accepted the recommended sentence.

"This is not a typical drug delivery situation," he said. "It is a friend."

Wolf and her lawyer, Tyler Lindquist, said Wolf is committed to rehabilitation. Wolf, who has been diagnosed as bipolar and with depression, according to the defense, apologized and asked Ridge to order her to undergo drug treatment while she is incarcerated.

The prison stay will separate her from her two children and a newborn granddaughter, according to testimony. Wolf has been incarcerated since her arrest, when she was unable to post a $75,000 bond.

"This is something that I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life," Wolf said of Esper's death.

Drug overdoses still hitting Erie County hard

Wolf's case is one of several recent prosecutions in Erie County Common Pleas Court involving a drug delivery that resulted in a death.

On May 16, a 26-year-old Girard resident was convicted at trial of supplying the fentanyl that caused a 32-year-old woman's overdose death in December 2021. And on May 21, a 43-year-old man pleaded guilty to supplying a 27-year-old Fairview Township woman with the fentanyl that caused her overdose death in April 2021. The victim in that case, Taylor Miller, openly shared her experiences with addiction and created an online resource to help others battle addiction.

The prosecutions come as the illegal use of opioids and other drugs continue to plague Erie County.

The county recorded its second-most accidental drug deaths in 2023. Also in 2023, according to new statewide data, Erie County had the highest rate of drug overdoses among Pennsylvania's 67 counties. The report said Erie County had 184 accidental overdoses per capita.

At Wolf's sentencing, Ridge and Cantrell commented on how opioid addiction has affected Erie. Esper, Cantrell said, is another victim of a scourge that "ravages this community."

"At the end of the day," Cantrell said of Esper, "he may have been an addict, but he was a human being."

ContactEd Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com or 814-870-1813. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Nurse sentenced in fatal fentanyl overdose of her friend in Millcreek