Resident of Special Commitment Center Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison for Drug Distribution Conspiracy, Witness Tampering Defendant Manipulated Multiple Women, SCC Employee for His Scheme

LAWRENCE WILLIAMS, a resident of the Special Commitment Center (SCC) on McNeil Island, Washington, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to nine years in prison and five years of supervised release for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and witness tampering. WILLIAMS was found guilty by a federal jury March 26, 2010. The jury deliberated for one and one-half hours following a three-and-a-half-day trial. WILLIAMS’ scheme was uncovered in July 2008, when the FBI intercepted the delivery of crack cocaine that WILLIAMS had planned to pick up at the mail room and distribute in the secure facility. At sentencing U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle said he saw a need to protect the public from WILLIAMS. The Judge told WILLIAMS that the others in the conspiracy “would not have been involved except for your deception and manipulation. You are a master at it.”

According to testimony at trial, WILLIAMS used his telephone privileges to manipulate women living outside the SCC for his own benefit. WILLIAMS called telephone chat lines, without revealing that he was a resident of a treatment facility for violent sex offenders. In one instance he told the woman he was a firefighter in Oregon, and through various means convinced the woman and others to assist him with acquiring drugs to distribute in the SCC. WILLIAMS convinced one woman, a former nurse at the SCC, to become involved with him romantically. This woman’s contract was terminated and she was banned from the SCC in 2006. The nurse provided WILLIAMS with more than $250,000, which he used to woo other women and to pay for drugs and pornography to be smuggled into the SCC. According to testimony at trial WILLIAMS convinced various women to appear in pornographic videos which he directed by phone from the SCC. WILLIAMS then threatened to send the videos to one woman’s employer if she did not continue to assist with his smuggling plan. WILLIAMS also paid an employee in the SCC mail room to assist in the smuggling scheme. The employee was fired and sentenced to six months in prison.

After the smuggling conspiracy was uncovered, WILLIAMS called one of the women he had manipulated and told her to lie to the FBI and get rid of a car, that he had purchased for her, that had been used in the drug delivery. That conduct resulted in his conviction for witness tampering.

Even after his conviction WILLIAMS continued to try to manipulate various women sending e-mails that were either abusive or attempts to curry favor by promising gifts and emotional commitment.

At the sentencing hearing, Assistant United States Attorney Bruce Miyake said WILLIAMS “asserted quite a bit of control over women he met on telephone chat lines. He was able to conduct this entire conspiracy over the telephone. This is a deeply disturbed and dangerous man from whom the public needs to be protected.”

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Washington State Patrol, and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Bruce Miyake and Jill Otake.

For additional information please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney’s Office, at (206) 553-4110 or Emily.Langlie@USDOJ.Gov.