Heroin trafficker receives a second chance from judge

A California man got a second chance to turn his life around recently when Flathead District Court Judge David Ortley granted him a deferred imposition of sentence for trafficking heroin in the Flathead Valley.

Richard Sigmon, 43, of Oceanside, California, received a six-year deferred sentence for one felony count of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.

After lengthy testimony about Sigmon’s life, Ortley noted that Sigmon had no prior convictions on his record.

“That is rare,” Ortley said. “Either you’ve been a very good criminal or the wheels just came off and you crashed.”

Ortley said he believed Sigmon had crashed an otherwise productive life based on testimony, though Ortley made it clear he did not feel sorry for the results of Sigmon’s poor choices.

During testimony, Sigmon and his sister painted Sigmon’s story as one that was stellar until he was introduced to recreational heroin.

He started a roofing company and had several employees at age 21. He eventually went on to own a coffee shop and several restaurants.

Aside from his business successes, he had achievements in his personal life. He won several photography awards despite never having taken a photography class, finished triathlons, traveled internationally and even earned the title of Mr. Oregon in 2009.

“Anything he became curious about and decided to do, he would go for it and accomplish it,” his sister, Serena Mason, said.

Sigmon was the “family celebrity,” according to Mason.

Within a five-month time frame, she watched all of that disappear. She went to her brother’s car dealership in Portland, Oregon, and noticed the type of people he was hanging around with was uncharacteristic. She eventually realized he had a heroin addiction.

“That was probably more painful to me than my father’s death,” Mason said. “This was my brother and this was someone that I never thought in my life that an addiction problem would enter our family.”

Mason planned a trip to Portland because she was worried her brother’s problem was out of control. “I actually thought somebody would find him dead in the office,” she said.

But by the time she got there, the office was abandoned. Sigmon was on the road, headed to the Flathead Valley in a Hummer, where he got stopped with two other people carting a half-pound of heroin for delivery to an unknown set-up executed by the Northwest Drug Task Force.

He called his sister for bail money, but she declined, although family and friends had more than raised the money to get him out of jail.

Mason said she wanted to let him stay in the tank for a while and to detox.

In those early days after the arrest, Mason said she could still hear the heroin influence in her brother’s voice. “It took a month before I felt like he was back and the demon was gone,” Mason said.

She convinced her husband to let Sigmon stay with them despite her concerns about his addiction. She said he’s made considerable strides since the arrest to get his life back in order. He has a trucking job, goes to church and spends time with his family.

In court, Sigmon’s attorney, Jason Bryan, argued that a deferred imposition of sentence would help Sigmon continue his life in a positive trajectory. Bryan said he knew a deferred imposition of sentence would be “an extraordinary” and unusual sentence for drug distribution, but that it would give Sigmon a chance to live his life without the black mark of a felony on his criminal record once the six-year sentence expired.

Prosecutor Travis Ahner argued for a suspended sentence. In that scenario Sigmon would not go to jail if he continued to follow the law, but a felony conviction would appear on his record. Ahner said a suspended sentence would be in line with the sentences that Sigmon’s female co-defendants faced.

Ahner asked Sigmon how much heroin he had been using prior to his arrest, but Sigmon said that he did not know exactly because the drug had blurred his memories of that time. He estimated he might have used $100 to $150 worth of heroin a day. The recreational drug costs, coupled with financial difficulties of a struggling car dealership business is what drove Sigmon to traffic the heroin, he said. He hoped to make more than $6,000 for the load he brought to the Flathead. He admitted to smoking meth and heroin while driving to Kalispell.

“You were trucking over a significant amount of heroin and that heroin was going to be distributed to a significant number of people,” Ahner said. “All sorts of people would have gotten wrapped up for the first time or fueled or continued to spiral down ... A number of different lives are going to get derailed because you were in a financial bind.”

Such wide-reaching potential consequences should have a fitting punishment, Ahner maintained.

Sigmon agreed he needed to be punished, but could not put his finger on what that punishment should be. He said he was left financially destitute, with a $500,000 bankruptcy.

Ahner argued that those misfortunes were a result of poor choices.

“That’s not a punishment,” Ahner said.

Sigmon acknowledged he is statistically likely to relapse in the next few years, but said he is going to do everything in his power to get back to the life he once had. In addition to the sentence, Sigmon was assessed $3,000 in fines and court fees.

“I can at some point try to rebuild what I feel is a good life,” Sigmon said.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.