North Carolina Sisters Sentenced To Prison On Drug Trafficking Charges
ASHEVILLE - , NC - On Tuesday, September 6, 2016, U.S. District Max O. Cogburn, Jr. sentenced two sisters to 87 months in prison and five years of supervised release on drug trafficking charges, announced Jill Westmoreland Rose, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Melissa Sigmon, 29, and Shana Sigmon, 26, both of Sylva, North Carolina each pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of methamphetamine.
According to filed court documents and yesterday’s sentencing hearings, from about September 2014 to about January 2015, Melissa and Shana Sigmon were members of a drug network responsible for trafficking large quantities of methamphetamine in Georgia and Western North Carolina. Shana Sigmon ’s fiancée was running the distribution ring from inside a Georgia prison, where he was serving time for a narcotics trafficking offense. According to court records, Shana and Melissa Sigmon accepted multi-pound shipments of methamphetamine and then re-distributed the drugs to wholesale customers throughout Georgia and Western North Carolina. According to court records, over the course of the investigation Shana Sigmon was responsible for trafficking more than 14.5 kilograms of methamphetamine and Melissa Sigmon trafficked more than 12.5 kilograms of methamphetamine.
The defendants are currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.
U.S. Attorney Rose thanked the DEA, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, the Swain County Sheriff’s Office, and the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office for handling the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Kent of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Asheville prosecuted the case.
The DEA encourages parents, along with their children, to educate themselves about the dangers of legal and illegal drugs by visiting DEA’s interactive websites at www.justhinktwice.com, www.GetSmartAboutDrugs.com and www.dea.gov.
