By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The accused prolific local trafficker of pain medications from both inside and outside prison pleaded guilty yesterday in a deal that could put him away for 12 years but avoid a third strike.
Forrest E. Amos, 31, was charged late last year in Lewis County Superior Court with leading organized crime and a multitude of other offenses following an ongoing investigation by the Centralia Police Department.
Law enforcement estimated that in 2011 when Amos was aggressively dealing Oxycodone, that he was the main supplier of the synthetic opiate within Lewis County, possessing and dealing thousands of pills a month.
Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead said he dropped the charge of organized crime, something police said Amos did by orchestrating drug dealing even after he was incarcerated. Amos pleaded guilty yesterday to an assortment of other offenses, he said.
Halstead also dismissed four counts of intimidating a witness, in a case from this summer in which Amos was suspected of planning from inside the jail to have associates hurt or pressure witnesses against him.
Amos is formerly of Napavine and Chehalis.
Halstead and defense attorney Don Blair will recommend to a judge that Amos be sentenced to 12 years, he said. A date for that court hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Amos’s sister Sylvia Pittman was charged also in June with witness intimidation, for allegedly delivering a “hit list” to another so-called supporter-conspirator.
Pittman, 27, pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of attempted witness intimidation and was sentenced yesterday to intensive inpatient drug and alcohol treatment; though if she fails at anytime during the following two years while she is under supervision, she could be sent to prison for almost two years, according to Halstead.