BILLINGS, Mont. — A Washington state man faces sentencing Friday, Aug. 29, in federal court on charges he led an interstate meth-trafficking ring that exploited workers in eastern Montana’s oil patch.
Robert Farrell Armstrong of Moses Lake will appear before U.S. District Judge Susan Watters in Billings. He pleaded guilty in January to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
Under a January plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to dismiss additional drug conspiracy, distribution, and firearms charges against Armstrong in exchange for his admission of guilt.
Prosecutors want him sent to prison for between 17 and 22 years. They point to the 50-year-old defendant’s extensive criminal record and say in Montana he ran a network of dealers and enforcers selling large quantities of almost-pure meth in Sidney, Fairview, Billings, Big Timber, Columbus, Livingston and Bozeman.
Armstrong’s public defender, Anthony Gallagher, is seeking a 10-year sentence. Gallagher says prosecutors overstated both Armstrong’s leadership role in the trafficking ring and his criminal history.
Armstrong, also known as “Dr. Bob,” was arrested last October in a law enforcement crackdown aimed at the Bakken oil region’s proliferating market for illicit drugs. Authorities have struggled to curb rising crime rates in once-quiet rural communities within the region along the Montana-North Dakota border.
At least a dozen other criminal defendants in cases linked by authorities to Armstrong previously were sentenced in federal court. They received punishments ranging from seven months to as many as 14 years in prison. Five more were convicted and are awaiting sentencing.
U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter said this week that prosecutors have racked up 105 indictments since the Bakken drug crackdown began about two years ago. Another 100 indictments, all on federal narcotics charges, are expected in the next 12 months, Cotter said.
Armstrong came to the region in 2012 from Washington, where he had a string of drug and assault convictions stretching over three decades, according to court filings from Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thaggard.
In Sidney, authorities say he oversaw a “sprawling” drug network that distributed large volumes of meth through subordinate dealers, including some who carried firearms or acted as enforcers to collect drug debts.
But Gallagher argued in a pre-sentencing memorandum that Armstrong’s role was not what prosecutors described. None of the drug ring’s participants exercised greater or lesser control over the others, according to the defense attorney.
“He was hardly a ‘kingpin,’ ” Gallagher wrote. “This was the classic case of a group involved collectively in a criminal enterprise … All or almost all were independent contractors working in concert to obtain methamphetamine.”
