Today, Richard Castleman, 43, pleaded guilty of the charge of unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He had 17 prior felony convictions.

“This is an example of why we have the new High Priority Offender Program,” said Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. “Our streets will be safer with chronic offenders off the streets.”

On or about November 13th, 2015, as part of an ongoing narcotics investigation, deputies served a search warrant on Castleman’s Dodge truck and found two baggies containing approximately 2.8 pounds of methamphetamine. Deputies also found more than $11,000 in cash and other drug paraphilia and a military style explosive device.

Castleman was on community custody at the time of his arrest. He told investigators he had been working as a truck driver and sold methamphetamine multiple times a day and that his profits were in the thousands of dollars.

Castleman also faced two additional charges from this year.  Sentences for those cases were rolled into today’s sentence.

The High Priority Offender Program uses data, technology and intel to identify and target the small percentage of offenders who are causing a large percentage of crimes.  The goal is to reduce crime by focusing resources on chronic offenders.