Contact Person: Lance Crick (864) 282-2100
Columbia, South Carolina ---- United States Attorney Beth Drake stated today that Shane Douglas Sichting, Jr., age 48, originally from Montana, and recently serving a 10-year sentence at Federal Correctional Institute, Edgefield, South Carolina, was sentenced in federal court by United States District Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks of Charleston, to 135 months imprisonment, on charges of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire and retaliating against an informant, violations of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1958(a) and 1513(a)(1).
On September 1, 2016, Sichting entered a guilty plea to the charges. Evidence presented at the change of plea hearing established that Sichting was tried, convicted and sentenced in United States District Court for the District of Montana on a murder for hire charge in 2007. Sichting’s intended victim was his now former wife. The individual he hired to kill his wife reported Sichting’s actions to the FBI and testified at his trial in Montana. Following his conviction, Sichting was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and was serving the last part of that sentence at FCI, Edgefield in July 2015.
During July 2015, Sichting approached another inmate at FCI, Edgefield about killing his former wife and the person he hired to kill her. The inmate agreed to help Sichting but instead contacted the FBI and advised them of Sichting’s intentions to hire someone to kill his former wife and the informant/witness against him. Sichting specifically wanted the murders to take place prior to his anticipated release to a halfway house in January 2016.
The FBI devised a plan to have the inmate provide Sichting with a telephone number for a “hitman” that was willing to do the murders. Sichting was to contact the hitman by telephone to make arrangements for the murders. In actuality, the hitman was an FBI employee acting in an undercover capacity.
Through these telephone calls and mail correspondence, Sichting provided the hitman with confidential information relating to the intended victims. Sichting used predetermined coded language to communicate with the hitman, referring to each of the intended victims as certain makes of cars. He also negotiated the price to be paid for each of the murders.
The case was investigated by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Prisons. Assistant United States Attorney Jeanne Howard of the Greenville office handled the case.
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