Waukesha - A 35-year-old Waukesha woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for providing methadone on separate occasions to two people who overdosed and died.
Nina E. Pudil also was ordered by Waukesha County Circuit Judge J. Mac Davis to serve 10 years of extended supervision when she is released from prison.
Pudil was found guilty last month of two counts of first-degree reckless homicide in connection with the methadone overdose deaths after she entered Alford no contest pleas to the charges.
In an Alford plea, a defendant does not acknowledge guilt but concedes there is sufficient evidence for conviction.
In April, Pudil was charged in the death of Donald G. Arnold, 40, who was found dead March 31, 2007, at the Airport Lodge in the City of Pewaukee, where he lived, according to a criminal complaint. Pudil was accused of giving Arnold liquid methadone and was with him the night before he died.
Pudil also was charged in February in the methadone overdose death of Nola K. Heinowski, 46, of Waukesha. Pudil was accused of selling liquid methadone to Heinowski, who was found dead at her home Oct. 15, 2008.
The Alford no contest pleas were entered by Pudil as part of an agreement in which eight other felony drug-related charges filed against Pudil in a separate case were dismissed. Those charges included manufacturing and delivering suboxone and oxycodone, maintaining a drug trafficking place and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud.
Part of the reason Pudil, who had no prior criminal record, entered pleas to the homicide charges was to reduce her possible prison term, her attorney, Mark Powers, said in court last month.
Pudil had faced a total of 50 years in prison on the homicide charges. She was facing 67½ years in connection with the eight other drug-related charges.