Havre woman gets probation in case that sent husband to prison

A Havre woman was sentenced to three years probation and given a chance to clear her name in a drug case that sent her husband to prison for 12 years.

Rebecca Lightfoot, born in 1974, was charged last September after police officers found found nine-and-a-half ounces of marijuana, less than a gram of hashish, drug paraphernalia, and a 2005 Dodge truck and more than $7,000 in cash subject to forfeiture related to a search of the apartment she shared with David Lee McKinney, who was born in 1976.

McKinney also was charged after the search with drug crimes and with violating probation.

Both defendants entered plea agreements in their cases. Lightfoot and McKinney were married Feb. 7, two weeks before McKinney was sentenced to eight years in prison for violating conditions of his suspended sentence in a 2008 sentence followed by eight years with four suspended on the 2013 charges.

McKinney, who had a string of state and federal felony charges going back to at least 1996, was charged in 2008 after he was accused of breaking into a woman’s residence, damaging her property, threatening her, later trying to push her vehicle into traffic at an intersection, calling a man to say he would kill the woman if she did not drop the charges and leaving a message for her on her phone while a Havre police officer was interviewing both that man and the woman. He pleaded guilty in a plea agreement in that case and was serving a suspended sentence at the time of last September’s search.

Judge Dan Boucher sentenced Rebecca Lightfoot McKinney Monday in state District Court in Havre. He imposed a three-year deferred imposition of sentence for her guilty plea to criminal possession of dangerous drugs with intent to distribute and ordered her to pay fines totaling $1,485.60 and $110 in fees and surcharges.

Boucher said the sentence is appropriate because this is her first felony offense and it was nonviolent, and prison time was not appropriate at this time. He said it is appropriate that she be able to remove the felony from her record.

In a deferred imposition of sentence, if a defendant abides by all conditions of release, after the probationary period she may petition to have the felony struck from her record.