SEATTLE — A New Mexico man was sentenced Friday to 1 1/2 years in federal prison for his part in a conspiracy to sell contraband cigarettes at the Blue Stilly Smoke Shop in Arlington.
Matthew Cunningham also was ordered to pay $21.5 million in restitution.
Cunningham was a tobacco products distributor and was paid to help the owners of the Blue Stilly Smoke Shop avoid paying taxes on cigarettes shipped to the Stillaguamish Indian Reservation.
The shop was owned by Ed and Linda Goodridge, their son, Eddie Goodridge, and a relative, Sara Schroedl.
Authorities believe the Goodridges were able to avoid paying more than $20 million in cigarette taxes by faking invoices and disguising the ownership of the shipments.
Cunningham’s company was paid for the shipping expenses and paid an additional $500 for every shipment of untaxed cigarettes sent from a warehouse in Oregon under his business’ name. The paperwork was falsified to make it appear that his business was buying the cigarettes.
The Goodridges were on the tribal council when they set up the shop.
They were sentenced to prison in March 2009 and were ordered to pay more than $25 million that should have gone to Washington state through tobacco taxes.
The money raised through the illegal cigarette sales didn’t go to the tribe, but instead wound up enriching the Goodridges and their co-conspirators, prosecutors alleged.
The case was investigated by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Internal Revenue Service and the state Liquor Control Board.
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