FARGO 鈥� A former walk-on to the Bison football team who was part of the 2015 National Championship squad was sentenced Thursday to serve five years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges.
Colter Pritchard, 30, of Langdon, N.D., and Phoenix, was stopped by law enforcement on Interstate 29 south of Fargo on Feb. 14, 2024. A search of Pritchard's car turned up a Sig Sauer 9mm handgun and more than 5 kilograms, or 10 pounds, of cocaine. Prosecutors said it was the last of several trips Pritchard had made over the previous year, in a conspiracy which ultimately resulted in more than $500,000 worth of cocaine flowing into the Fargo community.
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Pritchard entered guilty pleas to two criminal counts at the federal courthouse in downtown Fargo on Thursday, June 12, one for conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with the intent to distribute, and the other for possession with intent to distribute.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kopp said Pritchard was "not a typical defendant we see in drug trafficking cases."
"He was raised in a small town and comes from a loving family. He played Division I college football, got a degree. But he got lost somehow along the way," Kopp said. "As an outsider looking in, I believe it was an overwhelming ... addiction to and need for money, which consumed him."
Kopp said things hadn't been going well for Pritchard after he graduated with a bachelor's degree in sports management and business administration, and he needed to make money in order to finance a business he was trying to get off the ground in Phoenix.
"He found a shortcut," Kopp said. "He had a friend from college who was a local cocaine dealer in Fargo and he met a supplier of cocaine in Phoenix and thought it was his golden ticket."
Pritchard became the go-between who transported the drugs between Arizona and North Dakota, prosecutors said.
"There aren't many six-figure drug deals that happen in Fargo," Kopp continued. "But there were multiple of them in this case."
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Pritchard's attorney, Sean McNally of the Suzuki Law Offices in Phoenix, said by the time his client was stopped on I-29, cocaine trafficking was no longer the "quick buck" it started out as, with Pritchard's family being threatened by other parties in the drug trafficking scheme. McNally said the situation was weighing so heavily on Pritchard that he was contemplating suicide, which is why he had the handgun in his car, on loan from his brother.
In a statement to the court, Pritchard said the gun being in the car on the day he was pulled over was symbolic because it was at a time when he was terrified about the situation he'd gotten himself in, but "its presence meant I was able to overcome one of the darkest times of my life, and not give in to my suicidal thoughts," Pritchard said, through tears.
He said he'd been seeking treatment for anxiety and depression and working for his brothers since that time, and thanked his mother who he said taught him the value of hard work and raised him and his three siblings "almost entirely on her own."
"I dream of someday giving back a fraction of what she gave up for us," Pritchard said.
Chief Judge Peter Welte sentenced Pritchard to serve five years in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons at the "lowest level security facility as close as possible to Langdon." Pritchard will be on three years of supervised release after leaving prison.
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