Former tribal cop gets prison time for stealing drugs and cash from evidence, compromising 27 cases

Prosecutors said he used a crowbar to break into the investigations office on several occasions to steal opiates, meth and cash, compromising more than two dozen criminal cases.

June 29, 2018

A former Fort Peck tribal police officer has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for burglarizing the tribe's drug investigations office in 2017.

Mikkel Derrik Shields, 33, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Great Falls on Thursday.

Prosecutors said he used a crowbar to break into the investigations office on several occasions to steal opiates, meth and cash, compromising more than two dozen criminal cases. The break-in was captured on surveillance video.

Tribal prosecutors were forced to dismiss 27 criminal cases as a result of Shields' actions, federal prosecutors said at a hearing in March, where Shields admitted charges.

Shields broke into the Fort Peck Law and Evidence Building three times in 2017, on Sept. 9, 11 and 23-24, according to the indictment. On Sept. 25, he burglarized the Fort Peck Tribal Jail, including its evidence room.

Under a plea deal filed in February, federal prosecutors agreed to dismiss three of the four original counts of burglary.

Shields was also ordered to pay $1,149.06 in restitution to the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes Department of Law and Justice.

Shields will serve a year of probation after completing his prison term, Judge Brian Morris ordered.