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Former Pasco Deputy Sentenced In Drug Case

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI

esilvestrini@tampatrib.com

Published: December 12, 2008

TAMPA - A former Pasco County sheriff's deputy was sentenced this afternoon to two years in federal prison for participating in a drug ring by using his patrol car and service weapon to rob a man he thought was a drug courier.

Don Riggans, 35, tearfully apologized to the court, prosecutors, the community and his family for not only breaking the law, but going against everything for which he stood.

He told U.S. District Judge Richard Lazzara that he did it to get money so he could pay off debts and purchase a dream house for his wife and young daughters.

The hardest thing he ever had to do, Riggans said in a choked voice, was look his daughters in the eye and explain his crime.

Riggans' wife, Kimberly, also a Pasco sheriff's deputy, tearfully pleaded for mercy, while saying she doesn't think she'll ever understand what he did. She said one horrible mistake should not define who her husband is as a person.

"Please take a lifetime of good into consideration," Kimberly Riggans asked the judge. "His actions were a betrayal to both me and our profession …We need him and we've already suffered so much."

Since her husband's arrest, she said, the family has lost everything. They've lost their house, moved in with her father and had to sell most of their possessions. She said she and her husband have also lost their retirement benefits. She said she finds it difficult to go to work every day without a sense of shame.

Another Pasco deputy, David Riffe, spoke on Riggans' behalf, stressing he doesn't condone what Riggans did.

"This was not typical; this was not normal," Riffe said, adding, "I love him like a brother to this day. He is a good man."

Riggans pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and distribute hydrocodone and possession of a firearm in the course of a drug crime. Ordinarily, he would face a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in prison on the weapons charge and that sentence would have to be consecutive to whatever other sentence he received.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Porcelli asked the judge to sentence Riggans without regard to the minimum mandatory sentence and also to impose a lesser sentence because of Riggans' extensive and immediate cooperation with law enforcement as soon as he was arrested.

Riggans was prepared to testify against co-defendant Kevin Massimino, who ultimately pleaded guilty without the need of a trial, Porcelli said. He also gave information about another Pasco detention deputy, Rodney Philon, who was sentenced to probation with six months of home detention for distributing steroids.

Another co-defendant, Robert Caddick, 52, was sentenced this afternoon to 27 months in federal prison.

According to his plea agreement, Riggans conducted a bogus traffic stop for the conspirators after they arranged to steal $30,000 from a courier working for a Miami buyer. Authorities have said Philon was part of the planning but that Riggans would have to do it because Philon didn't have a patrol car.

The courier, who actually was an informant, was enticed to turn over the money for future drugs after receiving five pills. The traffic stop was designed to scare the courier into fleeing. The conspirators split the $30,000.

Riggans' attorney, Lori Palmieri, asked Lazzara to impose a more lenient sentence of eight months in federal prison, followed by eight months in a community facility and then eight months of home detention. She argued Riggans already suffered substantially and he should be given credit for all the good he's done in his life, including nine years in the military reserves.

Palmieri said Riggans received numerous commendations during his nine years as a law enforcement officer.

"He's made a grave mistake, but it doesn't erase the enormous good he's done in his lifetime," Palmieri said.

In passing sentence, Lazzara said he'd ask a question he always asks when former law enforcement officers stand in front of him: "Who protects us from the protectors?"

The judge added that crimes like this damage the public's faith in law enforcement. "This undermines the rule of law, and without the rule of law, we are nothing as a people or a society."

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837.

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