Des Moines woman sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling drugs

A Des Moines woman who was found guilty of delivering a controlled substance of five grams or less to her friend — who later died after using the drug — has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for committing the Class C felony. Taylor Nelson was officially sentenced on Aug. 4 after a three-day jury trial back in May.

According to court documents obtained by Newton News, Nelson will serve her term in prison at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville. Nelson’s sentence may be reduced by as much as half of the maximum because of statutory good conduct time, work credits and program credits.

Nelson may be eligible for parole before the sentence is discharged. She has also been fined $1,000, which has been suspended due to incarceration. She is also ordered to pay court costs and a crime services surcharge of 15 percent of any portion of the fine which has not been suspended.

Newton News previously reported on Nelson’s trial. In addition to her felony charge, she was subject to an enhancement, meaning the jury would have to determine whether Nelson was responsible for the death of Newton woman Kristen Ewing, who used the drug.

However, the enhancement resulted in a hung jury.

Kristen Ewing was 25 years old when she died in 2023 of an overdose of fentanyl thinking it to be heroin. Since then, her mother, Shannon Allen, has advocated justice for her daughter and for other families who have had loved ones die to fentanyl. She even shared her daughter’s story at the Iowa State Capitol.

Ewing was found dead in her home on July 9, 2023. Her 4-year-old daughter was home at the time of her death. A criminalist analyzed the leftover substances and determined with 99.73 percent confidence that it was not heroin, a natural opioid, but rather fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. The fentanyl was not cut with other drugs.

One of the bills that advanced through the House this year is nicknamed “Kristen’s Law” in honor of Allen’s daughter. It has not been signed into law, but in its current form it would apply a first-degree murder sentence to individuals who sold doses of fentanyl that resulted in the death of the person who consumed it.

Allen’s advocacy also established greater clarity for an existing law and extended jurisdictional prosecuting powers. The next step in Allen’s search for justice was to see this law applied to the person accused of selling fentanyl to Ewing in Polk County: Taylor Nelson.

Evidence of police body camera footage show Nelson confessed to selling Ewing heroin and had obtained the drug the day she sold it to her friend. Facebook messages showed Nelson telling Ewing that she had a gram left to sell and that it was “fire.” Ewing agreed to pay $225 for the illegal substance.

“I never meant to hurt her,” Nelson said in the video footage, adding that she told herself if ever she got arrested for this crime she would accept her punishment.

During the trial, Nelson repeatedly denied selling Ewing heroin. She told jurors everything she said in the interview, or interrogation, with the police detective was not true. At the time, she said, she had relapsed on heroin and was still strung out and didn’t know what she was talking about.

Nelson testified that her Facebook messages about the sale were a ruse to get her friend to meet with her face-to-face and have an intervention. Prosecutors were skeptical, saying that she had provided Ewing with her Cash App account to float $100 for the sale. Nelson claimed this was also part of her plan.

County attorneys doubted Nelson would continue to lead her friend on when she negotiated for a higher price. If her plan was to get her friend to Des Moines for an interview at a nail salon at Merle Hay Mall, he questioned whether it was necessary to haggle for an extra $25 when she offered to pay $200.

The prosecution did not buy Nelson’s “elaborate plan” to lure her friend to Des Moines to give her information on a rehabilitation center in front of her child.

Apparently, neither did the jury.