Libby man sentenced for hiring hitman
A Libby man will return to prison after attempting to hire someone for a second time to kill his wife.
Shane Sichting, 48, was near the end of a 10-year federal sentence for trying to hire a hitman to kill his estranged wife in 2006. He was sentenced Jan. 13 in U.S. District Court in South Carolina to just over 11 years in federal prison for again trying to hire someone to kill her and the hitman who had previously gone to authorities.
On Sept. 1, 2016, Sichting entered a guilty plea to use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of felony murder for hire and felony and retaliating against an informant.
According to court records, Sichting, who owned American Muscle Autoworks in Libby, approached an employee in November 2006 about hiring someone to kill his wife. Sichting allegedly said she was causing him problems.
The employee agreed to the job and told Sichting he would hire a Mexican hitman. He then accepted $30,000 from Sichting before returning to his family in Eugene, Ore., leaving his car in Libby as collateral for the payment.
The employee contacted law enforcement and FBI agents began investigating Sichting. On Aug. 30, 2006 they sent an undercover Kalispell police officer to pose as the would-be murderer for hire.
Sichting was arrested shortly afterward and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2008.
According to court documents, Sichting was serving the last few months of the sentence at a federal correctional institution in South Carolina when he approached another inmate nicknamed “Killer” about murdering his ex-wife, the witness and the employee he originally attempted to hire as a hitman.
The inmate contacted law enforcement and advised them of Sichting’s intentions.
Sichting specifically wanted the murders to take place prior to his anticipated release to a halfway house in January 2016, because he wanted custody of his children when he was released.
The FBI devised a plan to have the inmate “Killer” provide Sichting with a telephone number for a hitman who would actually be an undercover FBI agent.
Sichting completed a total of four telephone calls to the undercover agent and ultimately agreed on a price of $10,000 per killing to be paid in cash.
On Jan. 7, 2016, Sichting was interviewed by the FBI. After waiving his rights, he provided a handwritten nine-page statement confessing to hiring the hitman. Sichting later moved to suppress the written statement, along with the statements he made to the FBI. The court denied Sichting’s motion and he later entered the guilty plea.