Five years deferred for 300 pills

A man who pleaded guilty to illegally having nearly 300 prescription pain pills when he was pulled over on Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation will spend five years on probation - and have a chance to clear his record - in return for his guilty plea.

Richard Vanzant III, born in 1984, pleaded guilty in in July in state District Court in Havre to possessing 267 oxycodone pills he planned to sell. Under the plea agreement, a felony count of possession of property subject to forfeiture and a misdemeanor count of possession of marijuana were to be dismissed.

In a civil case, Vanzant forfeited $1,431 and a 1978 Pontiac Grand Prix to the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force.

Monday, state District Judge Dan Boucher imposed a five-year deferred imposition of sentence for the possession of drugs with intent to distribute charge and ordered him to pay $5,737 in fines and fees.

Vanzant was arrested and charged after Rocky Boy police pulled him over for a traffic violation, and noted his car matched a report from the previous day of a vehicle from which a man was selling prescription drugs at a Box Elder bar.

The officers called in the drug task force, and Vanzant agreed to let the task force agents search his car. They found the oxycodone - three different types of pills of the painkiller - in a prescription bottle with an unreadable label, as well as a small amount of marijuana and the cash.

Boucher said while imposing the sentence Monday that the sentence is appropriate because the offense is Vanzant's first felony conviction, is for a nonviolent crime, and provides incentives for his abiding by his conditions of release including paying his fees and fines, which could lead to the sentence being shorter if paid in a timely fashion. But Vanzant was in possession of a large amount of prescription drugs he intended to sell, Boucher said, adding that failure to abide by his probationary conditions could lead to time in prison.

If Vanzant abides by all of the release conditions, after the probation he may petition to have the felony struck from his record.