McKinney sentenced to 12 years plus probation

A Havre man with a lengthy criminal history is going back to the state prison for a lengthy stay.

David Lee McKinney, born in 1976, was resentenced this week in state District Court in Havre to eight years in prison for violating probation on a sentence for a 2008 offense. Another four-year sentence followed by four on probation for a 2013 drug offense to which he pleaded guilty was added on.

McKinney — and his girlfriend, Rebecca Lightfoot — were charged after officers said that when they served a search warrant on the couple’s residence last fall they found nine-and-a-half ounces of marijuana, less than a gram of hashish, drug paraphernalia, and a 2005 Dodge truck and more than $7,000 in cash subject to forfeiture.

Lightfoot, who pleaded guilty to a drug charge stemming from the search, is scheduled for sentencing in March.

McKinney has a string of state and federal charges for drug possession, assault and illegal possession of firearms stretching back to 2000 in Montana.

That includes a 2002 federal charge of felon in possession of a firearm when McKinney was accused of possessing a stolen firearm after he had been convicted of a felony in Georgia in 1996. He pleaded guilty to the felon in possession charge and a possession of a stolen firearm charge was dropped.

Previously in 2002, he was charged with state felonies including criminal endangerment and possession of drugs with intent to distribute after law enforcement officers said he led them on a high-speed chase through Havre before stopping and fleeing on foot. The officers said they found marijuana, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia in the vehicle.

In 2003 he was charged with two federal counts of assaulting a peace officer when he was accused of spitting on and attempting to head butt a federal marshal while in custody. He pleaded guilty to the charge of spitting on the officer.

Those federal cases were reopened when he was charged with new state offenses in 2008.

In that case he was accused of crimes including assaulting and threatening his girlfriend — he was charged with a felony and a misdemeanor in 2000 when he was accused of injuring his girlfriend and later repeatedly hitting one of her friends on the head with a large flashlight. He pleaded guilty to reduced charges in that case and was sentenced to one year suspended on the two misdemeanors.

In 2008, he was accused of breaking into the woman’s residence, damaging her property, threatening her, later trying to push her vehicle into traffic at an intersection, and calling a man to say he would kill the woman if she did not drop the charges while a Havre police officer was interviewing both that man and the woman.

After he pleaded guilty to the 2008 charges, he was sentenced to 15 years with 10 suspended and resentenced to three years on the 2002 state felony.

McKinney, in December last year, pleaded guilty in a plea agreement to the felony drug charge of possession with intent to distribute, filed after the officers found the marijuana in September.

This month state District Judge Dan Boucher sentenced him to eight years with four suspended, to follow the eight-year sentence he imposed Wednesday for McKinney’s probation violations on the 2008 charge.