(The Center Square) – Caught with enough to kill nearly everyone in Spokane County four times over, a federal judge sentenced a man to 20 years on Wednesday for his massive fentanyl “pill mill” operation.
Timothy Maddox, 44, of Spokane, will serve two decades in prison after the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington handed him a lengthy sentence. Law enforcement arrested the man in 2023 after executing search warrants at multiple properties that uncovered drugs, firearms and more.
Last year, the county faced a record-breaking 353 overdose deaths, 15% more than in 2023. Fentanyl contributed to 78%, but fentanyl-related deaths increased by more than 19,000% from 2018 to 2023.
Maddox’s arrest took a prolific narcotic supplier and trafficker off the street as the county and the city of Spokane spend millions of dollars addressing the crisis. Much of that comes from settlements with opioid manufacturers, but local taxpayers also bear the costs in the wake of homelessness in the area.
“HSI Seattle answered the President’s call to confront our nation’s fentanyl crisis head-on by bringing justice in one of Eastern Washington’s largest pill manufacturing cases,” Colin Jackson, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s investigative branch, wrote in a news release. “With this sentencing, Maddox is held accountable for endangering a residential neighborhood by operating a makeshift narcotics lab that housed enough fentanyl to produce over two million lethal pills.”
According to federal data, Spokane County had an estimated population of 555,900 last year.
Court records show Maddox and his accomplice, Nicholas Adams, who faces trial in December, bought a commercial pill press from China to manufacture fentanyl for bulk distribution in a Hillyard basement.
According to the news release, authorities also seized large quantities of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, MDMA and marijuana, multiple loaded firearms and body armor. Maddox also faced a federal conviction in 2015 after admitting to operating for years as one of Spokane’s largest drug dealers.
He allegedly admitted to dealing around a pound of meth and an ounce of heroin every other day in the two years before he was arrested for that. During that time, Maddox also committed two drive-by shootings, targeting an occupied residence and an occupied vehicle, according to county court records.
His criminal history also includes convictions for residential burglary, vehicle theft, domestic violence, negligent driving, protection order violations, assault and drug trafficking, according to the release.
“The volume of fentanyl that this investigation took off the street is truly staggering,” U.S. Attorney Pete Serrano wrote in the news release. “I cannot overstate the impact our team made here by identifying a repeat criminal who was manufacturing vast quantities of this deadly drug while heavily armed.”
Serrano said taking Maddox off the street will protect Spokane “in ways seen and unseen” for decades.
The effort was made possible by multiple federal agencies collaborating with local law enforcement to investigate the case, with the Washington State Department of Ecology there for the search warrants.
“Mr. Maddox spent years peddling misery and death for his own enrichment, and I am proud that DEA and our partners could put an end to his trafficking with this sentence,” David Reames, special agent in charge of the DEA Seattle Field Division, wrote in the release.
