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Deputy Given 2-Year Term

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI

esilvestrini@tampatrib.com

Published: December 13, 2008

TAMPA - A former Pasco County sheriff's deputy was sentenced Friday 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 he said he stood for.

He told U.S. District Judge Richard Lazzara 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 an emotion-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, saying one horrible mistake should not define who her husband is as a person.

"His actions were a betrayal to both me and our profession," Kimberly Riggans said. "We need him and we've already suffered so much."

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."

Citations Issued In January Pileup On I-4

Troopers are issuing non-criminal traffic citations for drivers involved in a 24-vehicle crash that led to five deaths on Interstate 4 in January.

About a dozen people will receive citations in the Jan. 9 crash between County Road 557 and State Road 559, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Steve Gaskins said Friday.

The crash was one of several on I-4 that January day. Because of fog and smoke, about 70 vehicles were involved in a dozen crashes and five people died.

A staff report

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