EVERETT — Pepper Prigger made one last ditch effort Wednesday to stay out of the slammer.
Over the years Prigger, 33, has been the subject of numerous criminal investigations, including allegations of prostitution and blackmail. She has avoided a criminal record, until now.
A Snohomish County jury earlier this month convicted Prigger of three counts of perjury and one count of bribing a witness.
Prigger was accused of lying to police about being assaulted by her young son’s father, a Washington State Patrol trooper.
She paid a woman $100 to lie to police. The woman agreed to say that she witnessed the trooper attacking Prigger last year outside a convenience store in Arlington while the two exchanged custody of their son.
Prigger and the man are engaged in a contentious court battle for custody of their nearly 3-year-old son.
Prigger’s story fell apart when Arlington detectives pressed the witness and she confessed to taking money and a ride home in exchange for writing a false police report. Prigger was arrested in May.
Prigger tried to convince a judge on Wednesday that she couldn’t communicate with her attorney and needed a new one. She asked to delay her sentencing for a couple of weeks.
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Michael Downes denied the request. Prigger had already attempted to delay the trial when she said she might hire a new lawyer. Besides, her attorney Marybeth Dingledy, with the Snohomish County Public Defender’s Association, did a remarkable job representing her, Downes said.
Downes sentenced Prigger to a year and five months in prison, the top of the standard range.
Her attorney requested that Prigger be given a first-time offender waiver. That could have meant a three-month jail sentence, two years of community custody and counseling. Prigger didn’t have any previous criminal convictions. Her father believed she would benefit from mental health counseling, Dingledy told Downes.
The judge denied the request.
“She has not owned up to anything,” Downes said.
Prigger took extreme efforts to further her false allegations against the father of her child, the judge said. She manufactured evidence and recruited and convinced a woman to perjure herself. She could have cost the trooper his job.
“It is hard to imagine a worse situation than what Ms. Prigger did,” Downes said. “The actions of Ms. Prigger are honestly despicable.”
Prigger has made headlines before in Seattle and Chicago for involvement in scandals involving police, prostitution and money laundering. None of that history was raised during this case.
Her victim, the state trooper, told Downes he’d been placed on administrative leave for about a month while Prigger’s allegations were investigated and revealed to be false. The lies took a toll on his family, he said.
He said it wasn’t the first time her allegations caused him trouble at work. Prigger is getting better at making a false allegations against him, he said, and he doesn’t believe the accusations will stop.
“She does not believe the laws apply to her,” the man said.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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