Aging porn star turned Capitol Hill 'enforcer' won’t slow down After life of crime, Seattle man faces what may be life sentence for drugs, guns

Photo: DOJ An AK-47-style rifle is pictured at the home of a man to whom...

Michael Riley’s strange life of crime may be at an end.

Riley, 54, faces what may amount to a life sentence for drug and gun crimes. The prosecution was sparked by a brief but decisive 2014 investigation into a man described by investigators as an enforcer for a drug ring in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Federal prosecutors noted that Riley could have been expected to change his ways after his last hitch in prison. Criminals tend to as they move through their middle years. Not Riley.

“Instead of going straight, Riley moved up in the criminal underworld and became an armed drug dealer,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Todd Greenberg and Thomas Woods said in court papers.

“There is no reason to expect rehabilitation here,” they continued.

In one small way at least, Riley has lived a life befitting his name.

Already a convicted felon several times over, he was caught in July 2013 with an extensive collection of stolen Seattle Police Department equipment, including a department-issue Taser and body armor. He avoided prosecution – no one who could is saying why – only to be caught months later after a standoff with police behind a haughty Seattle hotel.

Unlike many career criminals, Riley managed at times to find honest work. He ran a tow truck company, worked as a nightclub security guard and acted in pornographic films.

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors asked that Riley receive a 15-year prison term. Riley contends he is unlikely to survive a lengthy stint.

U.S. District Judge James Robart imposed the 15-year term, remarking that Riley's crimes -- heroin distribution, methamphetamine distribution and gun possession -- represented a "triology" of extremely serious charges.

Riley had "truly embraced the criminal lifestyle and chosen to follow that as his life path," Robart said, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office account of the sentencing hearing.

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At its core, the investigation that brought down Riley lasted only hours.

On March 27, 2014, police officers assigned to a state taskforce arrested a drug dealer who identified Riley as his supplier of methamphetamine and heroin. The informant led police to Riley’s home while a Bellevue Police Department detective leading the operation contacted his counterparts at the Drug Enforcement Agency.

“They informed me that he has been arrested for selling and possessing large amounts of drugs within the last two years,” the detective said in court papers. “DEA further informed me that Riley was an enforcer for a drug ring in Capitol Hill, and has been associated with firearms in the past.”

The scene the surveillance team observed was that of a classic drug house. A steady stream of users and lower-level dealers arrived with stolen property or cash; they stopped in at a shipping container in Riley’s yard, and left resupplied.

Investigators raided Riley’s home after a one-sale sting operation. The early morning raid of Riley’s home was intense. Investigators were joined by SWAT teams from Bellevue and Seattle, who arrived on the scene in armored trucks. Flash-bang grenades were deployed into the then-empty home in the 11800 block of 57th Avenue South.

Police recovered nearly a pound of meth and 12 ounces of heroin, as well as a trove of firearms and $13,300 in cash. Also seized was a stolen police badge from a Georgia department, nearly two pounds of steroids and a collection of stolen property.

Riley was arrested the same night driving in downtown Seattle. Arresting officers said Riley attempted to break from the surveillance team following him. He was apprehended after a tense stop that saw him draw a pistol from his shoulder holster after parking his Chevy Tahoe behind the Fairmont Hotel, a sedately luxurious Seattle landmark.

Riley later explained to investigators that he thought the police who stopped him might have been robbers looking to steal his drugs and money.

“If this was, in fact, a ‘drug-rip,’ surely shots would have been fired by both sides and very likely Riley and/or his adversaries would have been injured or killed,” Greenberg and Woods said in court papers. “This was the life Riley was living on a daily basis prior to his arrest.”

Caught with a pistol, body armor and $2,100 in cash, Riley avoided jail – albeit briefly – by faking a medical episode. After a short stay at Harborview Medical Center, he was booked into King County Jail and, ultimately, federal detention.

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Writing in court papers, Greenberg and Woods said Riley kept lying after his arrest. He feigned mental illness and then lied to the court while attempting to withdraw a guilty plea he had entered.

Riley has been committing crimes since the early 1980s. He began with minor offenses before moving into fraud and forgery. One fraud scheme landed him a four-year term in federal prison following a 2001 arrest.

Undeterred, Riley narrowly avoided prison in March 2012 after police looking to arrest another man searched his home. Police found several guns, $15,000 in cash and a selection of illicit drugs.

He was arrested against in October of that year after police watching a Seattle Public Storage facility stopped him and searched his SUV. That time he was carrying a dealer-quantity of methamphetamine and a pistol, and took a state gun possession charge.

Stopped again with meth and a pistol in January 2013, he was busted in July of that year after failing to pay rent on a storage locker packed with stolen goods.

Among Riley’s “vast collection of stolen property,” Greenberg and Woods noted, was “lots of stolen police equipment, including uniform patches, a riot stick, ballistic body armor, a traffic safety vend and poncho with the words ‘Seattle Police,’ a police radio holder and a police duty belt.” Also recovered during that investigation were a police-issued Taser stun gun and a Seattle Police Department patch.

“No charges stemming from this incident were referred to state or federal prosecutors,” Greenberg and Woods said in court papers.

On completion of an investigation, police can request that prosecutors bring charges against a suspect. It is not clear from court documents why the Seattle Police Department investigators declined to do so. Questioned by police, Riley claimed the equipment had been stolen from a “guy named Bobby.”

In November, Riley pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine and heroin with intent to distribute both drugs, and possession of a firearm in connection with a drug trafficking crime. He remains jailed.

Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.