That’s Donna Monticone’s penalty for swapping infertility patients’ fentanyl with saline for six months.
U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall handed down that sentence Tuesday in New Haven.
Monticone, 49 pleaded guilty in March to tampering and swapping fentanyl with saline as part of a scheme to support her addiction.
Monticone admitted she stole the fentanyl for her own use and substituted the vials with saline. Monticone told Judge Hall during the sentencing Tuesday that she was “drowning” in stress at the time while going through a divorce and struggling with safety concerns of her three kids when they visited the father.
Monticone’s public defender, Allison Near, told Judge Hall that the single mother had been dealing with custody battles and Department of Children and Families (DCF) findings of the fathers’ physical and emotion neglect for the past seven years. This past June, Monticone’s now ex-husband told her he had a stomach bug when he in fact had been infected with Covid. After his “near-death hospitalization,” Monticone said, she had formed a new level of anxiety when sending her kids to visit their father.
“In June 2020 I hit a breaking point,” she said.
Near told the judge that she fears if Monticone was sentenced to an extended time of incarceration, her three children would be put in psychically and mentally unsafe conditions with their father full-time.
Monticone estimated that during the time she tampered with the medications about 75 percent of her clients were impacted. In her Tuesday statement, Monticone said she is a former fertility patient. She also said her recent intensive drug treatment has been “life changing.” She promised Judge Hall that she will not see her again.
Near said Monticone completed treatment at an Institute of Living program and continues to be engaged with AA programming.
A friend of Monticone, Rosemary McBrien, testified Tuesday describing their nine-year friendship. She said she has witnessed Monticone’s former husband being phsycaiily aggressive with her in public and in front of the children before. She said Monticone “typically operates by the book.”
“I don’t think the children will thrive if they live with their father full time,” she said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Raymond Miller said Monticone caused psychical and emotional pain to several victims who submitted victim statements to the court. He argued that Monticone’s crime deserved a prison time because the physically invasive in vitro fertilization procedure the victims were already going through become more costly “emotionally, biologically, financially.”
“She knew what was at stake,” he said. “And she knew their names. She knew their faces.”
A woman identified as “victim one” testified to address Monticone face to face. She described the pain caused after the sedation and procedure as excruciating.
The procedure last year was her second egg extraction. Unlike her first, the second procedure left her to deal with a psychological toll, she said. The victim, who is a physician, said she told the nurses that they had given her saline, but they did not believe her. She said after the procedure she was hospitalized and treated like an addict. She could not communicate because of the pain she was in.
A second woman, identified as “victim two,” said she developed a relationship as a Yale patient with Monticone and others over the past seven years. Prior to her procedure last year, she had dealt with three ectopic pregnancies, which Monticone knew about. After her procedure, Victim Two said, she woke up in unbearable pain screaming.
“She chose fentanyl out of all drugs to use to cope with her issues,” she said. “One wrong dose of fentanyl could have killed her, and if she would have died she did not think of her children,” said Victim Two.
“Victim Three” testified that after the procedure she got pregnant for 17 weeks and five days until she lost the child. She said after being treated like she was overreacting, she now suffers from panic attacks when going through surgical appointments because she fears “the medication won’t be enough.”
“I want her to know that she has hurt me. She has hurt my family,” Victim Three said.
“This isn’t a get out a jail free card because you have children,” Judge Hall told Monticone before announcing the sentence.
Monticone’s sentence requires her to pay $637.56 of restitutions. Her four weekends of incarceration will correspond with her custody schedule.
After her incarceration, Monticone will be on home confinement for three months, and on supervised release for three years. She also was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service within the first year and three months of home confinement within the supervised release period.