LINDSEY NICOLE SMITH, also known as "LINDSEY McDOWELL," age 22, of Tacoma, Washington, pleaded guilty in United States District Court of making a false statement in an official proceeding. She faces up to five (5) years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, and three (3) years of supervised release when she is sentenced on July 8, 2005 by United States District Judge Ronald B. Leighton.

Court records show that on March 18, 2004, agents and officers with the Pierce County Violent Crime Task Force served a Pierce County Superior Court search warrant on a Tacoma apartment and a vehicle belonging to defendant SMITH. Officers recovered "crack" cocaine, a bulletproof vest, assorted ammunition, two handguns, and an assault rifle. The items actually belonged to SMITH's boyfriend, William "Rascal" McDowell, who had resided with Smith in her apartment since early February 2004.

William McDowell was indicted by a federal grand jury and was detained at the Federal Detention Center pending his trial. On or about August 18, 2004, McDowell filed a motion to suppress the evidence in his case. That motion was premised on McDowell's assertion that certain facts in the search warrant affidavit, such as that he lived with SMITH in her apartment, were either false or otherwise misleading. In support of McDowell's suppression motion, defendant SMITH filed a sworn declaration with the Court that contained false material statements asserting that McDowell did not live with her during February or March 2004. If those false statements had been credited by the Court, the evidence against McDowell might have been suppressed and his case dismissed.

The government was able to disprove those and other statements in SMITH's declaration, however, and the Court denied McDowell's suppression motion. McDowell was thereafter convicted at trial in December 2004, and is to be sentenced by Judge Leighton on July 1, 2005.

The cases against both McDowell and SMITH were primarily investigated by members of the Pierce County Violent Crime Task Force, made up of agents and officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Tacoma Police Department, the Lakewood Police Department, the State Department of Corrections, and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. Both cases were investigated and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Gregory A. Gruber.

For further information, please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney's Office, Western District of Washington at (206) 553-4110.

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