Man sentenced for drug sales
A 27-year-old former Columbia Falls man was sentenced to five years with the Department of Corrections for trying to sell cocaine, his second drug-sales sentence in five years.
Flathead County District Court Judge Ted Lympus sentenced Joshua Welliver of Kalispell on Oct. 29, 2014, on a single count of possession of meth with intent to distribute. Lympus ordered the five-year sentence to run consecutively to Welliver’s 2008 meth sentence.
In the earlier case, Welliver was arrested at Motel 6 in Kalispell in January 2008. Police responding to the motel reportedly found Welliver, his girlfriend, a pit bull, 15 syringes, a propane burner, a large amount of “cutting agent” and 44 grams of meth.
Welliver was charged with possession of meth with intent to sell. He admitted to “trying to make a buck” and struck a plea deal for a six-year deferred sentence.
Welliver moved to a rental on Terrace Court in Columbia Falls, but as probation officers later reported, he “did not adjust” to his probation conditions. A Marlin .22-caliber rifle and .40-caliber ammunition were allegedly found in the house, along with alcohol and drug paraphernalia and another man on probation — Bo Gravelin.
Welliver also allegedly failed to pay on his fines or supervision fees, drove without a valid license, tested positive for marijuana and was not employed. The Terrace Court residence attracted Columbia Falls police attention for several months that spring.
His problems got worse when he was arrested at Casey’s Bar in Whitefish in July 2011. Officers dispatched to the saloon arrested another Columbia Falls man, Michael Cantu, after he pulled a knife on a patron and was pursued into a back alley.
A search of Cantu turned up five small bags of meth. Meanwhile back inside the bar, a bouncer had subdued Welliver, who was found to have a $10,000 warrant stemming from his arrest at Motel 6 in Kalispell.
Judge Lympus revoked Welliver’s deferred sentence and re-sentenced him in September 2009 to 10 years under the Department of Corrections with five suspended and credit for time served.
Welliver’s most recent case stemmed from a drug deal that went bad in February 2011. A confidential informant told a sheriff’s deputy that Welliver would sell him meth, and a buy was set up at the Finnegan’s Restaurant parking lot in Kalispell with the sheriff’s deputy on hand to witness 0.5 grams sold for $60.
Welliver was initially charged with criminal distribution of meth, but it was amended under a plea deal to criminal possession with intent to sell, and the drug of interest was amended from meth to cocaine. Lympus sentenced Welliver under the plea agreement this past October.