A prominent Pierce County defense attorney who admitted to concealing a federal drug crime after unknowingly bringing contraband into a King County jail was sentenced Friday to a year of supervised release and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
John Sheeran, 62, pleaded guilty in May to a crime known as "misprision of felony." In doing so, he acknowledged he knew that someone possessed and intended to distribute buprenorphine, a Schedule III controlled substance, but he failed to report that information to authorities.
The charge, which stemmed from a plea bargain and carried a maximum three-year prison sentence, was far less serious than what Sheeran had faced after he was indicted by a federal grand jury in October 2024. Sheeran had been accused of smuggling drugs into the King County Correctional Facility to be sold to inmates for significant sums.
A grand jury indicted him on charges including conspiring to distribute controlled substances, possessing and distributing methamphetamine and distributing buprenorphine. Sheeran, who pleaded not guilty to those charges, had faced a maximum of 20 years in prison on the conspiracy-to-distribute charge alone.
In a July 30 letter filed in the U.S. District Court for Western Washington, Sheeran told Judge Ricardo S. Martinez that he took responsibility for what he did and that the case had brought shame on people close to him.
"I was working for a respected law firm in Tacoma and they had to suffer consequences of my actions. I have scores of friends who likely wondered if I am the person they have known for years," Sheeran, a former Pierce County deputy prosecutor, wrote in the letter. "I sincerely apologize for the stress, embarrassment and uncertainty this matter brought upon my family, friends, clients and colleagues."
The facts of the case were formally agreed upon by federal prosecutors and Sheeran's defense team — most notably that the embattled lawyer was unaware he had brought drugs into the jail. But court documents filed by the parties in advance of Sheeran's sentencing Friday show that both sides continued to dispute this central element of the case.
The records also reveal previously unreported details and accusations.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon prosecuted the case to avoid any appearance of conflict.
According to the plea agreement in May, Sheeran had represented two King County inmates who devised a scheme, along with a third inmate and a person close to that inmate on the outside, to smuggle drugs into the jail.
In March 2023, Sheeran picked up two sets of trial clothes and shoes for a client and the third inmate from a woman named Katrina Cazares at her home in Burien. Cazares concealed methamphetamine in the soles of the shoes, but didn't inform Sheeran, and also gave the attorney two cans of chewing tobacco, the plea agreement said.
Sheeran dropped off the trial clothes and shoes at the King County Correctional Facility, where a correctional officer detected and seized 52.6 grams of methamphetamine in the shoes during the intake process.
Sheeran maintained possession of the chewing tobacco cans, and despite being unaware there were drugs inside, he suspected that the cans could be illegitimate after narcotics were found in the shoes. Instead of reporting those concerns, however, Sheeran returned the two cans to Cazares at a 7-Eleven in Burien and "deliberately avoided learning the truth," the agreement said.
When Cazares was arrested in June 2023, one seized tobacco can contained approximately 19 suboxone strips — an opioid addiction medication consisting of buprenorphine, according to the agreement.
The plea-deal documentation didn't reference earlier allegations that Cazares also provided Sheeran roughly 30 sheets of paper soaked in meth or ketamine that he delivered into the jail in December 2022 and January 2023. The filing noted that more information could be presented at the time of sentencing or in a pre-sentencing report.
Sentencing memorandums filed by both sides late last month offered sensational claims.
A lead law enforcement investigator on Sheeran's case was charged with sexually assaulting a teenager, according to the government's memo.
Sheeran allegedly romantically pursued Cazares, the government's memo said, and a confidential informant uninvolved in the case claimed he previously paid Sheeran in cash, drugs and sex with prostitutes for transferring drugs to him in jail.
In their memo, Sheeran's attorneys said their client was deceived into bringing drugs into the jail by his co-defendants and evidence showed that other lawyers were also duped "into being unwitting mules."
"This is not a case in which police misconduct or the criminal histories of government witnesses derailed an otherwise provable prosecution," the defense memo said. "Rather, the government lacked credible evidence that Mr. Sheeran knowingly conspired with the co-defendants to distribute drugs or knowingly or intentionally distributed illegal drugs."
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon suggested it couldn't hold its tongue.
"While the government continues to fully abide by the terms of the plea agreement including its recommendation that the Court impose no additional jail time," the government's memo said, "the defendant has made it impossible not to rebut his public narrative of complete exoneration for the conduct charged in the Superseding Indictment."
Sheeran "repeatedly abused his position and privileged access to King County Correctional Facility (KCCF) to smuggle drugs to two of his incarcerated clients," the memo said.
Prosecutors compared Sheeran to former King County corrections officer Mosses Ramos, who was sentenced to more than eight years in prison in 2024 for accepting $5,000 to smuggle about a pound of meth and 100 fentanyl pills into the same facility.
Not unlike Ramos, "Sheeran's conduct was not motivated by greed or desperation — it was motivated (by) arrogance and a sense that he would never get caught," according to the memo.
When asked why prosecutors accepted a plea deal asserting that Sheeran didn't know he took drugs into the jail, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon declined to comment. In the government's memo, prosecutors cited the consideration of "various factors" when negotiating a plea agreement and argued that dismissing charges shouldn't be interpreted as lacking evidence to prove them.
Sheeran's attorneys, who described their client's conduct as "lapses in judgment," didn't respond to an inquiry about federal prosecutors' claims that Sheeran romantically pursued Cazares or previously smuggled drugs into the jail for an informant.
Sheeran maintains an active law license in Washington, which he has held since 1996, according to the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA). The organization's Office of Disciplinary Counsel reviews grievances filed against lawyers for alleged violations of the Washington Supreme Court's Rules of Professional Conduct, which addresses criminal behavior. Only the state Supreme Court can suspend or disbar a lawyer, the WSBA says.
In 2025, about half of the grievances filed in Washington came from a lawyer's opposing or former client, according to the WSBA's annual disciplinary report. Other complaints were produced by a lawyer's client or another lawyer. Nine percent of grievances were for personal behavior, which may include criminal law violations, the report showed.
The sentencing memo from Sheeran's legal counsel suggested that Sheeran intended to continue practicing law.
Ahead of Friday's sentencing, nearly two dozen attorneys, family members, friends and others within the legal community submitted letters of support for Sheeran to the court. Those supporters included Casey Arbenz, managing partner of Tacoma-based Puget Law Group, where Sheeran worked when he was arrested.
"I was stunned. I was also very conflicted. John's arrest — and the subsequent media coverage — was hard on our business and our reputation," Arbenz wrote. "The easy thing would have been to distance ourselves from him completely and be angry about the stress and scrutiny his arrest was forcing the firm to deal with. That said, nobody at my firm wanted to go that route."
Sheeran resigned from his position with Puget Law Group when he was indicted and later stepped down from his elected position as a West Pierce Fire commissioner. Four others tied to the case have already pleaded guilty to charges, including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, The News Tribune previously reported.