Pot Growers Face April Sentencing Couple Turned In By Ex-Coach; They’ll Have Chance To Do Same

A Cusick-area couple will be sentenced April 21 for a marijuana-growing operation that was fingered by their pot-growing neighbor, Jack Clayburn, the former girls basketball coach at Northwest Christian High School in Spokane.

Doyle and Sharon Rucker pleaded guilty in January in U.S. District Court in Spokane to one count apiece of manufacturing more than 100 marijuana plants. They agreed to pay $25,000 or forfeit part of their horse ranch.

The Ruckers were charged last November after Clayburn provided evidence against them as part of a plea bargain for a lighter sentence.

Clayburn’s deal called for him to pay $40,000 and serve 10 months in a federal prison, but Judge Fred Van Sickle cut the sentence to five months.

Clayburn will be released April 29 from the SeaTac Federal Detention Center at Tacoma.

He had just been promoted to the head girls basketball coach’s job at the Christian high school in November 1996 when police found about 300 pot plants in his barn. He subsequently resigned.

Clayburn’s wife, Margaret, wasn’t charged. But Sharon Rucker was charged along with her husband because authorities found her fingerprints on equipment used in their 560-plant marijuana growing operation.

Like Clayburn, the Ruckers will be given a chance to reduce their sentence by providing evidence against other growers. All the defendants avoided the usual minimum five-year sentences because they are first offenders and committed no violence.

, DataTimes