SPOKAN — A federal judge has sentenced Timothy Suckow to 30 years in prison for the assassination of a Spokane businessman in a case that has ties to the North Dakota oil patch.
U.S. District Court Judge Salvador Mendoza sentenced Suckow, 52, on Friday for shooting Douglas Carlile in his upscale home in Spokane in 2013.
Mendoza also sentenced two other men who pleaded guilty in the murder-for-hire plot, and delayed sentencing of a third, The Spokesman-Review reported.
Mendoza agreed with prison sentences of 10 years for Robby Wahrer, 35, who drove the van Suckow used to flee the scene of the shooting. He gave a 12-year sentence to Lazaro Pesina, 41, who was prepared to break in to the Carliles’ home with Suckow.
Mendoza rejected the 14- to 17-year sentence negotiated for 41-year-old Robert Delao. While acknowledging the importance of his testimony, and the hundreds of text messages investigators recovered from his phone detailing the plot to kill Carlile, Mendoza pointed to Delao’s lengthy criminal history, which includes another killing. Mendoza said he was mulling a 30-year prison sentence for Delao.
Suckow and Delao both testified against alleged mastermind James Henrikson in Carlile’s death, as well as the disappearance of Kristopher “K.C.” Clarke.
Suckow testified he bludgeoned Clarke to death at the direction of Henrikson and hid the body, which has not been found, on state park land near Williston, North Dakota.
Meanwhile, Henrikson, 37, is facing a potential life sentence when he is sentenced later this month.
In February, a federal jury in Richland convicted Henrikson of hiring a hit man to kill two of his associates in a dispute over business dealings in the North Dakota oil patch.
Henrikson’s federal trial was moved from Spokane to Richland because of extensive publicity over Carlile’s death. The businessman was shot in his upscale home as his wife hid in a closet and called 911. Clarke was bludgeoned at a North Dakota truck stop.
Federal prosecutors used witness testimony as well as cellphone and business records in presenting a case that Henrikson was a vindictive, dangerous criminal.
