Woman previously convicted in overdose death gets prison time for new heroin charge

A woman who previously served prison time for another man’s fatal heroin overdose was ordered to serve an additional nine years in prison for dealing the drug again last year.

The 34-year-old woman, Amanda Coots, was “never given the proper tools” to stop her drug addiction, she told Judge Sharon Prather on Thursday.

McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Randi Freese asked Prather to sentence Coots, formerly of Wauconda, to 15 years in prison on the most recent conviction. Coots pleaded guilty June 26 to manufacturing or delivering heroin in August 2017.

It was Prather who sentenced Coots in 2010 to 10 years in prison for delivering a fatal dose of heroin to 36-year-old Rustin Cawthon.

The sentence for drug-induced homicide was overturned on appeal, however. In 2012, Coots pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was given a new 7½-year prison sentence.

As Cawthon overdosed that day in 2009, Coots closed the blinds and gathered her drugs before calling a cab and leaving Cawthon to struggle for between one and four hours, Freese said in court.

The prosecutor added that she “could care less” about Coots’ battle with addiction, since 10 of the woman’s 14 previous community-based sentences were revoked for different violations.

“Her struggle shouldn’t matter to anybody,” Freese said.

Defense attorney Henry Sugden asked the judge to “take a chance” on Coots, who he said never was given the proper “tools” to address her addiction.

Prather, however, agreed that Coots had soiled all her previous chances of recovery.

“What I don’t understand or what I don’t believe is that you’re ready to do anything about it,” Prather said, adding that she loses a defendant to heroin about once a month.