Judge allowed a suspended Chester County lawyer to reinstate her guilty plea for manslaughter in the death of her husband

A Chester County judge has reinstated the guilty plea of a suspended lawyer accused of involuntary manslaughter in the overdose death of her husband, ruling that the Downingtown woman’s decision to withdraw an earlier guilty plea was involuntary and based on advice from her lawyer at the time.

The order, written by Judge Analisa Sondergaard, set a Sept. 20 sentencing date for Diane Rohrman, 50, in the 2019 death of Emeka Nwadiora Jr.

Rohrman, who worked in mediation and product-liability cases, initially agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in March 2022, admitting she had provided Nwadiora with the heroin that killed him. But at a sentencing hearing in August of that year before Sondergaard, Rohrman abruptly moved to withdraw her plea.

She had done so, Rohrman testified Wednesday at a hearing before Sondergaard, after being “pressured” by her attorney at the time, Eric Strand. She said Strand spoke with her during a break in the August 2022 proceeding and suggested she withdraw her plea, telling her it was a “misunderstanding,” and promising to renegotiate the terms with prosecutors.

» READ MORE: A Chester County woman, awaiting trial in a fatal overdose, is convicted of stealing $168K from her father

“He said the judge was giving me a do-over,” Rohrman said. “And I understood that to mean I should withdraw my plea.”

But Assistant District Attorney Michelle Thurstlic-O’Neill balked at that explanation Wednesday, telling Sondergaard that Rohrman has been stalling her prosecution in an attempt to “have her cake and eat it, too.”

She urged Sondergaard to reject Rohrman’s bid to have the plea reinstated, and instead to proceed to trial on the full list of charges she faced in the fatal overdose, including the much more serious offense of drug delivery resulting in death.

“To allow this defendant, at this point, to bring the case back to [sentencing] would essentially grant a windfall to her,” Thurstlic-O’Neill said, referencing the impact the original sentencing would have had on her legal troubles in a nearby county.

As the Chester County legal battle dragged on in the intervening year, Rohrman was convicted in Bucks County of stealing more than $168,000 from her elderly father while acting as his power of attorney. The theft was discovered, investigators said, shortly after her arrest in Nwadiora’s death.

Rohrman is serving a 1½-to-3-year sentence but has filed an appeal.

At the hearing in West Chester on Wednesday, Rohrman’s current attorney, Nathan Schenker, said that Strand had given her incorrect advice by claiming he had made an agreement with prosecutors to not make a recommendation for her sentence. At the time, prosecutors denied ever agreeing to that deal. Strand did not attend the hearing.

“Had there been competent representation,” Schenker wrote in court filings, “it is suggested that the sentencing would not have been interrupted or disrupted.”

Investigators were called to the home Rohrman and Nwadiora, 41, shared in West Bradford Township in 2019 for reports that Rohrman had found him dead in their living room, according to the affidavit of probable cause filed in her arrest.

Rohrman told the officers that her husband had overdosed, and that he was addicted to heroin and cocaine, the affidavit said. Nwadiora was on probation from a DUI case in Delaware County, and hadn’t left the home in days.

When officers asked how Nwadiora had obtained the drugs, Rohrman said she believed she had unknowingly transported them to him inside a shoebox that her husband had asked her to pick up from a friend of his, the affidavit said.

Rohrman also told the officers that she had recorded Nwadiora after he had taken the heroin. She did so, she said, so she could show him later how he behaves while high.

In the video, Nwadiora tells Rohrman he took “seven to eight bags,” and slides off a couch in their living room, according to the affidavit. Rohrman is seen running into another room and returning with what she tells Nwadiora is “coke,” and asks him to “do a line,” the affidavit said. She then puts the drug in his mouth.

Upon further questioning by police, Rohrman admitted she initially had lied: She had purchased $400 of heroin and cocaine in Delaware County, and brought it back to Nwadiora, the affidavit said. She feared Nwadiora, who was abusive and suffering from withdrawal, she said. Nwadiora threatened to attack her if she didn’t purchase the drugs for him, she told police.