{"id":2367,"date":"2010-10-06T16:04:19","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T23:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=2367"},"modified":"2010-10-06T16:55:54","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T23:55:54","slug":"centralia-muffler-shop-is-off-to-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=2367","title":{"rendered":"Centralia muffler shop owner is off to prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker
\nLewis County Sirens news reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHEHALIS – The owner of a Centralia muffler shop was sentenced today to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to three times selling methamphetamine to a police informant.<\/p>\n

Frank Eugene Willis, 65, answered “Yes, your honor” repeatedly to the many questions Judge James Lawler asked him about the rights he was giving up by pleading guilty.<\/p>\n

Eight family members and friends of Willis were behind him in the audience in Lewis County Superior Court.<\/p>\n

Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Brad Meagher told the judge part of the reason they brokered the plea deal was Willis has no criminal history and police neglected a 15-day deadline to get judicial approval for the wire intercepts – recordings made with a confidential informant.<\/p>\n

“That was an issue for us,” Meagher said.<\/p>\n

Among the charges dropped were possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and possession of stolen property, including two firearms.<\/p>\n

Willis, the longtime owner of the Muffler Hut on South Gold Street was arrested Aug. 19 after the Centralia Police Department’s SWAT team and other officers served a search warrant there, following an investigation into trafficking of narcotics and stolen property.<\/p>\n

Police seized about 40 firearms – described as mostly a collection of old rifles and some shotguns – and two were confirmed as stolen, according to Willis’s attorney James Dixon. The two attorneys are negotiating about Willis forfeiting most of the guns, Dixon said.<\/p>\n

The Olympia attorney had notified the court almost two weeks ago his client was planning to plead guilty and the lawyers were still hammering out a plea agreement.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, when Dixon received some of the case records from the prosecutor’s office, he realized the police department had not gotten the required judicial review, he said.<\/p>\n

“Once I discovered the problem with the wires, the prosecutor made an offer, which was fair, and we accepted,” Dixon said.<\/p>\n

The standard sentencing range for the crimes to which Willis pleaded guilty is 12 to 20 months. Meagher and Dixon agreed on the recommended sentence and the judge concurred.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

Read the news story from Thursday Aug. 19, 2010 when police served a search warrant at the Muffler Hut here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter CHEHALIS – The owner of a Centralia muffler shop was sentenced today to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to three times selling methamphetamine to a police informant. Frank Eugene Willis, 65, answered “Yes, your honor” repeatedly to the many questions Judge James Lawler asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10],"class_list":["post-2367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-by-sharyn-l-decker","tag-news-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2367"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2371,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2367\/revisions\/2371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}