DEATH SENTENCE
Cancer patient ‘with just one month to live’ is jailed for 10 months for shoplifting groceries
A CANCER patient in desperate need of surgery could die behind bars after being sentenced to prison for shoplifting groceries.
Ashley Menser will spend at least 10 months in prison after she was caught stealing $109 worth of groceries from a Weis Markets grocery store, a sentence that many are slamming as overly harsh.
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The 36-year-old appeared in court on January 22 hoping that Judge Samuel A. Klein would delay her sentencing since she's being treated for both ovarian and cervical cancer.
Instead, he handed Menser a prison sentence of up to seven years for the 2018 theft, creating a life or death scenario for the sick shoplifter.
She now sits in her cell unable to get treatment with just one month left to live, according to her family, who's pleading with the court to.
"I sat there and sat there and was like, 'No, this can't happen'," Steve Via, Menser's father, told the .
"She must have this operation or she's going to die."
Stephanie Bashore, Menser's mother, said a doctor told her that without treatment, her daughter would most likely die within a month.
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"She has no choice, it's life or death. The doctors sat there and told us this," said Bashore.
Menser's sentencing has sparked outrage in the community in - now, state Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman is calling for her release and has offered to foot the $109.63 bill for the stolen goods.
"If the underlying details of this are accurate, this cannot be allowed to continue. I'll personally pay the $109 back," he tweeted Friday, followed by another tweet with a photo of a check he wrote to Weis Markets.
"Calling on Judge Kline to err on the side of mercy."
He told the ";If there is no victim, why carry this out. Why are we arguing over whether a woman with cancer should be denied the ability to see her doctor?"
Menser, who has a history of drug abuse, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2011 and her family says she also has cervical cancer.
She was scheduled for an oncology appointment at the Hershey Medical Center's Cancer Institute on the morning of January 22 - the same day as her sentencing.
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Her family believed the court would allow her to attend the appointment, where she was expected to be scheduled for a hysterectomy to remove the cancer that has already attacked her lymph nodes.
She wrote a letter Wednesday night begging for her release for the surgery saying: "I am weak and in pain."
But Menser has a prior rap sheet, which her lawyer says the judge used to make his sentencing decision, rather than her medical condition.
She was convicted of theft in 2017 and with drug posession and theft in the year after.
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Since Menser was taken into custody, the corrections staff has neglected her cancer treatment, her parents claim.
However, Judge Kline did press for her to be moved to a state correctional facility "promptly" in order to take care of her medical needs, court dockets show.
The Lebanon County Correctional Facility Warden Robert J. Karned declined to comment on Menser's condition due to healthcare privacy laws.
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