Woman sentenced for poisoning attempt

A Utah woman has been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for trying to poison her 78-year-old landlord by putting antifreeze in his smoothie. Prosecutors said Selena Irene York, 34, of Vernal had forged her name as the beneficiary of landlord Edward Zurbuchen's life insurance and had taken thousands of dollars from his bank accounts using a stolen bank card, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. She was sentenced Tuesday in 8th District Court to three consecutive terms of up to five years each for the September 2008 poisoning. Zurbuchen complained of dizziness and numbness in his face when he was admitted to Ashley Valley Medical Center and doctors initially thought he had suffered a stroke but later found in his system ethylene glycol, an ingredient in antifreeze. He "still suffers physical ailments from this," Uintah County prosecutor John Gothard said. In April, a man with whom York had moved to Oregon, Joseph Dominic Ferraro, told Vernal police she had bragged about the poisoning. Ferraro said he told police about it because York had forged power-of-attorney documents while he was in jail and emptied his bank accounts, charging documents state.