BISMARCK — A Minneapolis man will spend 15 years in a federal prison after investigators caught him with numerous drugs in the Bismarck area.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland sentenced Richard Thomas Sims, 31, on Wednesday, July 15, in Bismarck after the defendant pleaded guilty in December to charges related to drug dealing and illegally owning guns, 13 of which he was ordered to forfeit to the government, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley.
“This defendant was running a drug dealer’s equivalent of a department store,” Wrigley said in a statement, adding that “the defendant posed a significant risk to public safety and is headed to a cell he very much earned.”
Investigators arrested Sims in April 2019, though court documents indicate he had been dealing drugs in the Bismarck area since January 2017. A search of his properties turned up 2686.4 grams of meth, 120 grams of marijuana, 108 ecstasy pills, 20 grams of cocaine, two LSD blotter papers, 7.5 OxyContin pills with no prescription and 27 grams of heroin, Wrigley's office said.
Some of the guns found in Sims’ possession included two pistols, two AR-15 rifles and a .223 caliber rifle that had been reported stolen in Montana.
