Woman headed to prison for drug distribution
A Flathead Valley woman who was previously charged in a murder-for-hire scheme is headed to prison for selling oxycodone pills.
Judith Johanna Cossette, 67, formerly of Martin City and Kalispell, was sentenced Friday to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said in a press release.
Federal authorities said Cossette admitted selling oxycodone pills to an undercover agent. She pleaded guilty in September to possession and attempted possession of oxycodone with intent to distribute.
The prosecution said in court documents filed in the case that Cossette met with an undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in March 2019 and sold the agent several pills, including 19 oxycodone tablets. Cossette told the agent she would be receiving 112 oxycodone tablets the following week and agreed to provide the agent with a steady supply of oxycodone for six months. The agent told Cossette he wanted the tablets to make some money.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Racicot prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the ATF.
U.S. District Judge Donald M. Molloy presided.
According to a April 2019 story in the Hungry Horse News, Cossette was charged with murder for hire, though most of the case against her was sealed from public view.
In an April 4 two-page unsealed federal indictment, Cossette allegedly “knowingly used and caused another to use a facility of interstate commerce with intent that a murder be committed.”
According to a spokesman from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Missoula, the murder-for-hire charge was dropped in August 2019 after Cossette agreed to plead guilty to the drug distribution charge, which carries a harsher penalty.
In 2002, Cossette was active with the Republican Party in the Canyon. The Hungry Horse News did a story on her efforts to bring food to the food bank in the Canyon after the grocery store Gary and Leo’s in Columbia Falls had excess food and wanted to give it away.