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TAMPA — A federal judge sentenced a relative suspected of aiding Dontae Morris, who is accused of killing two police officers, to five years in prison Friday.
Alaina Riggins, 27, of Seffner, pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was also given three years of supervised release for a 2011 incident.
Police said Riggins, who is Morris' cousin, and his brother, Dwayne Callaway, helped Morris elude arrest while he was being sought in the shooting of Officers Jeffrey Kocab and David Curtis in June 2010. Morris was arrested on July 2, 2010. Riggins and Callaway were arrested the same night on drug and firearms charges.
She pleaded guilty to the drug charges in Hillsborough County Court and was sentenced to time served. Callaway spent six months in Hillsborough County Jail for marijuana possession.
Carolyn Riggins, Alaina's mother, lost her civilian job with the Tampa Police Department after an investigation found she had hindered the search for her nephew, Morris, by not revealing her daughter had a close friendship with him and by withholding the whereabouts of people being sought by police.
Alaina Riggins was arrested again on Jan. 23, 2011, during a traffic stop in Tampa. A police officer found a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun, 72 rounds of ammunition, marijuana and crack cocaine in the vehicle.
Riggins posted $9,000 bail on Feb. 15 and was released from the Hillsborough County Jail.
In August 2011, she fired her attorney and asked for a public defender. A judge denied the request after finding out she had $20,000 in the bank from a lawsuit settlement.
The court also forced Riggins to forfeit her gun and undergo drug testing while on supervised release. Her mother lost an October 2011 appeal to get her city job back. Callaway is currently being held in the Hillsborough County Jail on a Dec. 23 robbery charge.
Times news researcher John Martin contributed to this report.
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