Kirkland resident and former Seattle Sonics basketball player Robert Swift was found guilty of illegally possessing a sawed-off shotgun found during a police raid of a drug house in Kirkland.
Swift was sentenced by a King County Superior Court judge for time already served (30 days) as well as a revocation of his firearm rights.
A fugitive for two months on an outstanding bench warrant for missing a hearing for possessing the shotgun, Swift was arrested Jan. 5 after allegedly attempting a break-in with another man at a home in Gold Bar. He initially pleaded not guilty on the gun charge in King County Superior Court.
A King County judge issued the bench warrant for his arrest when he failed to show up for his court appearance in November last year.
The sawed-off shotgun was found along with nearly 30 other firearms during a raid by Redmond and Kirkland police on a Juanita neighborhood home in October, where Swift was living at the time. The owner of the home on the 14000 block of 108th Ave., Trygve Lief Bjorkstam, 54, recently pleaded guilty in federal court to possessing meth and heroin with the intent to sell and sentenced to four years in prison. He also pleaded guilty to a third charge for prohibited person in possession of a firearm.
Swift had been previously evicted out of his Sammamish home after it was foreclosed. At the time of the October police raid, he had been living in Bjorkstam’s home for six months, according to police documents. Following the raid he was detained and brought to the Redmond Police Department, where he told investigators that he helped “clean the place up,” but wasn’t involved in the drug dealing. He admitted, according to the documents, that he had a heroin addiction and got his heroin from Bjorkstam.
Swift also told investigators that he had accompanied Bjorkstam to confront a drug dealer who had failed to give him $2,000 in heroin. Swift stated that both of them were armed during the confrontation, the documents continue.
Swift was selected by the Sonics with the 12th pick in the 2004 NBA draft.
