Eighth Defendant in North Idaho Drug Trafficking Organization Pleads Guilty

COEUR D'ALENE – Robert Hill, 48, of Williston, North Dakota, pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy to distribute heroin and oxycodone, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced.  Hill is the eighth defendant to plead guilty.  Eleven defendants in total were charged in the superseding indictment which was issued by the grand jury on April 19, 2016.  

During the court hearing, Hill admitted that he became a member of the drug trafficking organization beginning in 2009 and sold oxycodone pills and heroin in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Eastern Washington.  Hill helped the organization by selling and transporting controlled substances and by making sure the profits went to the appropriate

co-conspirator.  In addition to pleading guilty, Hill agreed to forfeit any interest he has in real property, jewelry or cash held by himself or by conspirators as outlined in the indictment. 

The charge of conspiracy to distribute controlled substance is punishable by at least five and up to 40 years in prison, a maximum fine of $5,000,000, and at least 4 years supervised release. 

Sentencing is set for May 2, 2017, before Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill at the federal courthouse in Coeur d'Alene.

The case was investigated by Coeur d’Alene Police, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), Kootenai County Sheriff, North Idaho Violent Crimes Task Force (NIVCTF), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The indictment is the result of a joint investigation of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), which included the cooperative law enforcement efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Marshals Service.   The OCDETF program is a federal multi agency, multi jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental federal funding to federal and state agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organizations.