A Maple Plain mother was sentenced to at least a month in the Hennepin County workhouse, electronic home monitoring and probation for manslaughter after her 6-year-old son died from chewing on a fentanyl-tainted dollar bill last year.

Brittany Elizabeth Ferrell, 30, admitted that she was a heroin user and had recently smoked fentanyl by using the dollar bill found next to an unresponsive, seizing Oaklee Hirsch on May 27, 2022, in their Maple Plain home where they lived with grandparents and Oaklee's father. Oaklee, who was autistic and known to shred and chew on paper, died at the scene.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office charged Ferrell with second-degree manslaughter, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence. She pled guilty in July.

District Judge Peter Cahill agreed to downward depart from sentencing guidelines and have Ferrell serve 180 days in the workhouse beginning Oct. 12. But after 30 days, she is eligible to be placed on electric home monitoring. Her sentence includes five years of supervised probation with the threat of a four-year prison sentence: If she violates terms of her probation — which include meeting with mental health professionals and abstaining from drugs and alcohol — she will have to serve the four years.

Reached by phone Thursday, her public defender declined to comment.

Oaklee's father, Brandon Hirsch, called 911 about 2:45 a.m. and said the boy appeared to have overdosed. He tried giving his son Narcan, which can reverse a potentially fatal opioid drug overdose. Hirsh saw a wet dollar bill by his son's mouth and believed it was Ferrell's.

Ferrell told officers her son slept next to her and she woke up and found that he had vomited and was not breathing. Later she told investigators that she had recently used the bill to smoke fentanyl that was supposed to be heroin. She put the narcotics on tinfoil and used the rolled up bill to inhale smoke. Fentanyl can be 50 times as powerful as the same amount of heroin.

Oaklee's cause of death was ruled acute fentanyl toxicity.

One of Oaklee's grandmothers told investigators that the boy was known to sometimes chew paper and swallow it or spit it out.

The boy's online obituary said Oaklee attended Spero Academy, a special needs charter school in Minneapolis.

"Children like Oaklee with Autism have many different ways to express themselves, one such way is called 'Stimming.' There was shredded newspaper everywhere as it was his favorite way to stim; the house looked like a gerbil cage, but he was happy," the obituary said.

The obituary continued: "He loved playing with his mom and dad's hair, flapping his hands with excitement, and jumping and singing on his indoor trampoline."