HELENA – A panel of three appellate judges has denied the appeal of a Libby man serving 10 years in prison for trying to hire someone to kill his estranged wife.
Federal prosecutors said the now 40-year-old Shane Sichting paid an employee at his auto body shop $35,000 to find someone to kill his wife, Sheilagh Sichting. He was found guilty of using interstate communications to commit murder-for-hire for wiring some of the money to an Oregon bank account.
During the trial, Sheilagh Sichting testified that she learned of the plan when FBI agents arrested her husband at a divorce proceeding.
Sichting was sentenced in 2006 by federal Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, who imposed the maximum sentence of 10 years under federal guidelines. The sentence was affirmed May 20 by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.