WAUSAU – A Fond du Lac woman was sentenced Aug. 13 in Marathon County Circuit Court to six years in prison for supplying the drugs that killed a 29-year-old man.
Marisa M. Arne, 31, whose current address is listed as Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, pleaded no contest to and was found guilty of first-degree reckless homicide by delivery of drugs and felony bail jumping.
As part of a plea agreement, drug-related charges from four other cases were dismissed but considered during sentencing.
Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Suzanne O’Neill sentenced Arne to six years in prison followed by 10 years of extended supervision. The sentence will be served concurrently with any sentence Arne is currently serving.
O’Neill gave Arne credit for 409 days she already served.
Wausau police responded to fatal drug overdose report
According to the criminal complaint, at 7:12 p.m. June 11, 2024, the Wausau Police and Fire departments responded to a report of a drug overdose at a home in the 500 block of North Third Avenue in Wausau.
The people in the house with the man said he had gone out for a while and then returned home. They said he seemed fine and went to take a shower, according to the complaint.
When it seemed like he had been in the bathroom a long time, they knocked on the door, but he did not answer. They went inside and found him unconscious on the floor.
The man was treated at the scene by emergency medical workers and then taken to a hospital, where he later died, according to the complaint. An autopsy determined he died from a combination of drugs, including fentanyl.
Investigators traced meeting to Marathon County Public Library
Investigators learned the man had met someone at the Marathon County Public Library that day. They reviewed video from a parking lot near the library and saw the man get out of the passenger seat of a vehicle and go to another vehicle, which belonged to Arne, according to the complaint.
The man got inside Arne’s vehicle. She got out, went to the back of the vehicle and opened the trunk. Arne returned to the vehicle, and the man then left.
Officers talked to Arne, who said she had seen the man on the day he died, according to the complaint. She said she saw him at the library and that he asked her for drugs, but she told him she did not have any and would not get him any.
Arne said they talked for 20 to 30 minutes before the man became frustrated because she would not get drugs for him and left.
Cellphone records linked Arne to heroin purchase
Officers seized Arne’s and the man’s cellphones and examined them. They learned the man routinely bought heroin from Arne, according to the complaint.
The man asked Arne for a syringe preloaded with a cooked and filtered heroin solution. The cellphone conversation matched what officers saw on the video at the library.
Police talked to a man who was in the vehicle when the man met Arne in the library parking lot. He said Arne had taken clean syringes out of the trunk for the man but that he did not see her give him drugs, according to the complaint.
The man said he thought Arne sold the man drugs, but he did not see it.
Contact Karen Madden at kmadden@usatodayco.com. Follow her on Twitter @KMadden715, Instagram @kmadden715 or Facebook at www.facebook.com/karen.madden.33.
This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Woman charged in fatal Wausau drug overdose gets six years in prison
Reporting by Karen Madden, Wausau Daily Herald / Wausau Daily Herald
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Karen Madden, Wausau Daily Herald | USA TODAY Network
