Man Behind Duffel Bags of Drugs Found on Clallam County Beaches Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison

A 69-year-old man whose failed scheme to float hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Canada left duffel bags of drugs washed up on Clallam County beaches has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

John Michael Sherwood, a former resident of Rhode Island, Texas, and Chicago, was sentenced July 17 in U.S. District Court in Seattle, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington. 

A jury convicted him in April, after a six-day trial, of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute, and conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

The Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team, the multi-agency task force that includes the Clallam County Sheriff's Office and the Sequim and Port Angeles police departments, announced the sentence locally on Tuesday.

At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones told Sherwood he came across as "a mad man desperate for money, willing to do anything," and said his conduct would have caused tremendous harm to thousands of people.

The case began on April 7, 2021, when a family walking a beach near Port Angeles found a partially submerged duffel bag. 

The Clallam County Sheriff's Office said the bag turned up in the West Twin beach area. Federal prosecutors said it held more than 50 pounds of methamphetamine and two pounds of fentanyl powder.

Around the same time, another beachcomber found a partially submerged, deflated Zodiac-style raft and noticed a U-Haul van coming and going from the beach area, according to prosecutors. 

Four days later, on April 11, 2021, a different beach walker reported seven more duffel bags hidden beneath a bridge a short distance from the shore. Those bags contained 252 pounds of methamphetamine.

Prosecutors put the wholesale value of the drugs in Canada at about $1.5 million.

OPNET detectives responded to the initial discovery, collected the evidence, and brought in the FBI, which led the investigation with help from Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Border Patrol and its Air and Marine Unit, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Trial testimony and evidence showed Sherwood hauled roughly 300 pounds of methamphetamine and close to a kilogram of fentanyl powder from southern California to the Olympic Peninsula, then tried to move the drugs across the Strait to a contact on the coast of Vancouver Island using a jet ski and an inflatable raft, prosecutors said. The attempts failed.

Investigators traced the duffel bags to a Walmart, where Sherwood used his debit card to buy them and was caught on store surveillance, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 

U-Haul rental records, a motel registration, and storage locker records further linked him to the smuggling attempt, and phone records showed him communicating with a coconspirator in Canada about getting the drugs across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Vince Lombardi told jurors in closing arguments that Sherwood and his coconspirators served as the transporters of the operation, calling them "the FedEx or the UPS of the drug trafficking crew."

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said the eight bags found near Port Angeles were only part of Sherwood's smuggling activity, saying evidence showed he made multiple drug runs to the Washington-British Columbia border to connect with his Canadian coconspirator.

Floyd said Sherwood accumulated five federal felonies over five decades, and called the 15-year sentence the result of persistent criminal behavior.

It took two trials to reach the sentence. After a first jury convicted Sherwood, the case team learned of and disclosed alleged misconduct by a government witness, and the matter was set for a new trial in front of a different judge, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 

The second jury convicted him in April 2026.

W. Mike Herrington, special agent in charge of the FBI's Seattle field office, said the family's discovery on the beach showed how brazen Sherwood's plans were, describing decades of criminal conduct that crossed state and international borders. 

Herrington said Sherwood engaged in money laundering, perjury, and plotting against cooperating defendants in attempts to cover up his crimes.

The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office in Idaho, the Montana Highway Patrol, and the Livingston, Montana, police department also assisted in the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lombardi and Sean H. Waite prosecuted the case.