Hugo Resident Sentenced For Second Degree Murder

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Ashton Boyd Smith, age 19, of Hugo, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 121 months in prison for Second Degree Murder in Indian Country relating to his role in a November 2021 robbery-homicide.

The charges arose from investigations by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Hugo Police Department, the Choctaw County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On September 13, 2022, Smith pleaded guilty to Second Degree Murder in Indian Country.  On November 15, 2021, Smith and an accomplice lay in wait for the victim outside the victim’s Hugo residence in order to rob him.  During the robbery, Smith stood by, armed with a rifle, while his accomplice shot the victim several times with a .22 caliber handgun, killing him.  Before fleeing the scene with the victim’s personal effects, Smith and his accomplice stopped to steal items from the victim’s vehicle.

The crime occurred in Choctaw County, within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable John C. Coughenour, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, sitting by assignment, presided over the hearings in Muskogee.  Smith will remain in custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant United States Attorney Benjamin D. Traster represented the United States at the sentencing hearing.