The United States Attorney's Office announced that during a federal court session in Missoula, on May 14, 2013, before U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen, SHAHID SINDHU KHAN, a 39-year-old resident of Othello, Washington, was sentenced to a term of:
Prison: 18 months
Special Assessment: $100
Supervised Release: 4 years
KHAN was sentenced in connection with his guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
In an Offer of Proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tara L. Elliott, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
On Aug. 23, 2012, a Confidential Informant (CI) was scheduled to purchase cocaine from KHAN and Ijaz Khan Sindhu in Missoula. Prior to arriving in Montana, KHAN and Sindhu were stopped by Idaho police officers and it was later discovered that they had 10 ounces of cocaine in their car.
The CI would have testified that he purchased cocaine from Sindhu on numerous occasions between January and August of 2012, and usually purchased approximately 9 ounces of cocaine at a time. He would have further testified that KHAN was with Sindhu on at least 4 or 5 of those occasions and at least once KHAN took the money from the CI for the cocaine.
Sindhu pled guilty to federal charges.
Because there is no parole in the federal system, the "truth in sentencing" guidelines mandate that KHAN will likely serve all of the time imposed by the court. In the federal system, KHAN does have the opportunity to earn a sentence reduction for "good behavior." However, this reduction will not exceed 15% of the overall sentence.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
