KETCHIKAN — The Ketchikan Police Department, Alaska State Troopers and Adult Probation office searched a Ketchikan building near Ward Cove on Monday and turned up a half a pound of methamphetamine, prompting the arrests of three men.
A KPD detective on Monday helped the probation office with a field check on William F. Riggs, 53 — who was on felony probation from a 2014 drug case — while he was leaving a building in the 7000 block of North Tongass Highway in his vehicle, according to a criminal complaint. Also in the vehicle was Scott E. Arrington, 55.
The complaint alleges that the officer searched a black leather coat and found a glass pipe with white residue in it and a small orange container that had three plastic baggies with a white substance inside them. The baggies had about one gram each of the substance inside them, and the substance field tested positive for methamphetamine. The black coat allegedly belonged to Arrington, according to the complaints.
The authorities then obtained and executed a search warrant on the machine shop in the 7000 block of North Tongass Highway. Inside the shop, officers found approximately 205.6 grams — just over 7.25 ounces — of a white substance that field tested positive for methamphetamine contained within 20 plastic baggies, charging documents allege. Drug paraphernalia — including a glass pipe and a digital scale — was also found.
A later press release from the KPD said the methamphetamine had an approximate street value of $100,000.
Police also executed a search warrant for Riggs’s Strawberry Road residence, where officers found $4,000 in cash.
Both Riggs and Arrington were charged with third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance, a felony. Riggs was additionally charged with petition to revoke probation, and Arrington with violation of conditions of release for a misdemeanor.
A third man — Charles F. Woolsey, 58 — was inside the shop working on his ATV when officers arrived, police say. Woolsey was charged with a petition to revoke his probation for allegedly violating his probation by possessing methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia, by refusing to give a urine sample, and by having contact with Riggs.
Ketchikan Superior Court Judge Trevor N. Stephens on Tuesday set bail for Riggs at $25,000; Arrington’s and Woolsey’s bail was set at $5,000. Woolsey’s case is being heard out of Ketchikan District Court.
