Snohomish man sentenced for hiring hitman to kill witness in drug trafficking scheme

TACOMA, Wash. - A Snohomish man has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for drug charges and for attempting to hire a hitman to kill a witness in the drug case. 

Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said while 44-year-old Michael Scott was awaiting sentencing for an earlier drug distribution crime, he continued to set up drug deals.

On Jan. 30, 2020, he was arrested when he tried to sell fentanyl pills to a person in Whatcom County, who, unknown to Scott, was working with law enforcement.

While at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, Scott agreed to pay an acquaintance $2,000 if he could help him find a hitman to kill a witness against him and an associate of that witness. He said he would pay $10,000 for each of the murders and wanted them to look like fentanyl overdoses. 

"In June and July 2021, Scott wrote letters disguised as ‘legal mail’ to the person he thought was the hitman and to a friend he wanted to handle payment for the crimes. Through that friend, Scott made the upfront agreed upon payment to someone who he believed to be a hitman," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. 

Scott pleaded guilty in June 2019 for his role in a 32-defendant drug trafficking case that was unsealed in December 2018. Scott was a high-volume redistributor of fentanyl-laced imitation oxycodone pills and cocaine, who delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to his cartel suppliers for the drugs–sometimes as much as $150,000 at a time. 

At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan said, "Mr. Scott had a long history of drug dealing capped by using interstate facilities to attempt to commit murder for hire and tampering with a witness." 

Scott was sentenced to 17 years for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire and tampering with a witness/victim/informant.