Fugitive cocaine distributor sentenced

A cocaine distributor who vanished a dozen years ago before turning up last year in New Zealand was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane to almost 13 years in a federal prison.

Robin Muller is the 37th and last defendant from “Operation Doughboy,” a major drug investigation in the early 1990s that took down Spokane-area attorneys, businessmen, tavern owners, a former deputy prosecutor and even a drug counselor.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice, who supervised the “Operation Doughboy” prosecutions, said Muller was one of three major suppliers responsible for distributing more than 200 pounds of cocaine a year in the Spokane area in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Muller, a resident alien living in San Francisco at the time, pleaded guilty in Spokane on May 19, 1995, to conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms – 11 pounds – of cocaine.

He faced a likely sentence of 120 months and would have been out of prison by now if he had appeared for sentencing in 1995.

Instead, while out on a $50,000 bond, Muller disappeared and fled the U.S. after being granted court permission to travel to Reno to be married.

“The defendant violated the trust I put in him” by absconding and failing to appear for sentencing in 1995, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Justin Quackenbush said.

In calculating the prison sentence, the judge said Muller would no longer be given credit for timely entry of a guilty plea and acceptance of responsibility.

“His being in a fugitive status for over 12 years exacerbated the situation,” the judge said.

Muller lived in Samoa and Tonga before being arrested in June 2006 in Auckland, New Zealand. After fighting extradition for more than a year, he was handed over to U.S. authorities on Oct. 1.

The judge sentenced Muller to 151 months in prison after denying his request to withdraw the guilty plea he made in 1995. After completing his prison term, the 56-year-old defendant will be deported to his native Tonga.

“It would create chaos in the criminal justice system to allow you to withdraw the guilty plea at this point,” the judge told the defendant.

After the passage of time, it would be difficult to locate witnesses – whose memories have faded – if Muller withdrew his previous guilty plea and demanded a jury trial, Quackenbush said.

“It is clear to me that the plea was a knowledgeable and voluntary plea,” the judge said, noting that Muller had a “highly qualified” defense attorney at the time.

“I also find that there was no coercion at the time Mr. Muller entered his plea,” said Quackenbush, who recalled taking the guilty plea from the defendant 12 years ago.

The judge also said the Justice Department, led by the U.S. Marshals Service, had spent a substantial amount of money in the lengthy effort to track and arrest the fugitive.

Those efforts included sending a deputy U.S. marshal to Tonga in 2000 in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest Muller. He fled after being tipped by a Tongan police officer, who later was fired.

Deputy marshals later traveled from Spokane to Samoa in another unsuccessful bid to nab Muller.

He was finally located and arrested by New Zealand drug task officers who took surveillance photos and matched them with photos and fingerprints supplied by U.S. authorities. Muller was using the alias Peter Francis at the time of his arrest.