A Santa Maria man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Sept. 13 by a federal judge in Montana for possessing and plotting to traffic more than 3 pounds of methamphetamine through several states.
Keith Coffin, 32, pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute meth, after he was arrested for a yearlong trafficking scheme in 2016. Court documents state that Coffin, with the help of others, planned to push more than a pound of meth through Montana, North Dakota, Idaho, and California.
Assistant U.S. attorney Zeno Baucus said in a change of plea hearing on March 31 that Coffin, with the help of another, gave more than $11,000 to someone only identified in court documents as “R.T.” in December 2015. R.T. then traveled from Sidney, Montana, to California, where he purchased more than 3 pounds of meth from a supplier Coffin knew.
The meth, according to court documents, was “scheduled” to be resold by Coffin and others in the Bakken area of Montana, near Sidney, where a recent oil boom has been the root of a major spike in the area’s population and crime rates.
R.T. was stopped by law enforcement while driving back to Montana, and he was arrested after officers found Western Union wire transfers of hundreds of dollars sent from Coffin to R.T., and from R.T. to the meth supplier. Confidential sources, according to court documents, told law enforcement officials that Coffin sold meth in Sidney, Montana.
Coffin agreed with the prosecution’s presented evidence at his March plea hearing, and told United States District Judge Susan Watters that he “conspired with one or more persons to distribute methamphetamine.”
Coffin was arrested for the crime while on probation for another, according to court documents. He was convicted of felony theft in North Dakota, and sentenced to 18 months of supervised probation. In his sentencing memorandum, Coffin said his record is void of any violent criminal history, although he has been in and out of trouble since he was a child.
The memorandum states that Coffin is the product of an abusive childhood, and that he started drinking and using drugs before junior high school. Coffin, according to the memorandum, said he hoped to use his time in prison for addiction treatment and to get his GED.
