Puyallup woman gets two-year sentence in Ecstasy case

EVERETT — A 19-year-old Puyallup girl who provided a friend with a fatal dose of Ecstacy was sentenced this afternoon to juvenile detention until she is 21.

The roughly two-year sentence given to Donalydia Huertas was well above the standard sentencing range of up to 30 days in a juvenile jail.

While the family of victim Danielle McCarthy, 16, and Snohomish County prosecutors sought a lengthy prison term, Huertas has claimed the death was an accident. Earlier this month, a Snohomish County judge ruled that Huertas would be sentenced in juvenile court, a decision that cleared the way for her to face a standard sentencing range of up to 30 days in a juvenile jail, instead of the nearly 5 years in an adult prison that she could have faced if sentenced in adult court.

McCarthy was pronounced dead on Jan. 1, 2007, at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds after she spent hours overdosing, according to witnesses.

The night before, McCarthy, Huertas, then 17, and David Morris drove from Puyallup to parties on the University of Washington's Greek Row and in Edmonds. Witnesses said that during the evening, McCarthy had taken Ecstasy that Huertas bought from Morris, according to charging papers.

But after taking a second tablet, McCarthy grew sick, the charging papers say.

Around 4 a.m., McCarthy was incoherent and drifting in and out of consciousness while at a house party in Edmonds. When someone tried to awaken McCarthy about two hours later, the girl's face was cold and her lips were blue.

While Huertas told police she did what she could to save her friend, prosecutors said that Huertas ordered people not to help McCarthy. Huertas and Morris eventually drove McCarthy to the hospital.

Morris, 21, has since pleaded guilty to controlled-substance homicide and will serve part of his nearly five-year sentence in drug treatment.

Information from Seattle Times archives is included in this report.