Forrest Amos, right, looks to his defense attorney Don Blair during Amos' sentencing hearing in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center in Chehalis.
Forrest Amos looks on during his sentencing hearing in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center in Chehalis.
Forrest Amos smiles at his defense attorney Don Blair during his sentencing hearing in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center in Chehalis.
Forrest Amos looks on during his sentencing hearing in Lewis County Superior Court on Wednesday afternoon at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center in Chehalis.
The Lewis County man who Centralia police accused of running a drug ring while locked up in state prison will spend the next 12 years behind bars.
Forrest Amos pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts earlier this month after “extensive negotiations” between the prosecutor’s office and his court-appointed attorney, Don Blair.
On Wednesday, both Blair and Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead recommended that a judge sentence Amos to 12 years.
Prior to the Aug. 1 guilty plea, Amos would have faced 40 felony changes, including the class A charge of leading organized crime. If the case had gone to trial, Amos was facing up to life in prison if found guilty of the felony since Amos already has two strikes on Washington State’s three-strike offender law.
During his sentencing hearing Wednesday afternoon, Amos declined to make a statement to Superior Court Judge Richard Brosey.
Brosey issued the recommended 12-year sentence, giving Amos credit for time served, which amounted to 262 days.
For 31-year-old Amos, a 12-year sentence gives him a chance to eventually live outside prison walls again.
Amos’ lengthy criminal record began in 2000 — at age 16 — when he and four other men broke into a house and robbed and severely beat the man inside.
Amos spent seven years in prison, and while incarcerated, he stabbed a fellow inmate several times, which resulted in a second-degree assault conviction and an additional three years in prison.
After his release in 2010, police say he began selling drugs and established a large-scale drug operation in Lewis County for prescription painkillers, according to court documents. When Amos was sent back to prison on a drug charge, he tried to maintain that operation, relying heavily on the prison phone system.
When he completed his prison sentence in 2013, he was transported back to Lewis County where he was charged with a laundry list of crimes.
Since pleading guilty, Amos got married, according to court records. He recently married 28-year-old Elizabeth C. Teter of Chehalis.
