A Mercer Island man arrested with drugs and an arsenal of weapons — including illegal Glock “switches” and 3D-printed guns — was sentenced Monday to six years in federal prison.
Michael Janisch pleaded guilty in January to possession of controlled substances with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.
“This case demonstrates that even those from an advantaged background can be lured into the drug trade and the gun violence that goes with it,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd stated. “This defendant used social media and his suburban rental house to prepare drug shipments that he mailed to drug customers across the country. Janisch engaged in his drug trafficking while armed with an arsenal of more than thirty weapons, Glock switches (used to convert Glock-style firearms to fire automatically), and scores of high-capacity magazines, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.”
Years-long investigation led to 14 arrests, including Mercer Island man
Authorities arrested Janisch and 13 other people in October 2024 after a years-long investigation.
“Text messages obtained from Janisch’s Snapchat account reflected Janisch and associate Bryce Hill discussing how much money each was making in the drug trade,” the release stated. “Hill was arrested on an indictment out of the Western District of Pennsylvania the day after those communications, and is now serving a 35-year sentence for drug trafficking.”
Janisch continued dealing drugs after associate’s arrest and co-conspirator’s murder
Despite Hill’s arrest, Janisch continued dealing drugs, including cocaine and MDMA, as well as firearms, authorities said.
“Even as his coconspirator Amir ‘Lethal’ Osman was gunned down outside a drug house in the University District of Seattle on June 24, 2024, Janisch continued his drug trafficking,” the release stated. “Janisch seemed comfortable with drug-related violence. In Snapchat text messages, he sought firearms from his drug contacts and even attempted to hire someone to conduct a ‘hit’ on a former drug distributor in another state.”
Federal agents found: 30 firearms, 60 pounds of mushrooms, kilos of cocaine
Janisch was arrested on October 30, 2024.
Federal authorities said they found more than four kilos of cocaine, 60 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms and/or marijuana, as well as dealer amounts of MDMA, ketamine, and LSD in his Mercer Island home.
They also recovered 30 firearms, which were stored near the drugs. Those weapons included assault-type semiautomatic weapons, thousands of rounds of ammunition, firearm suppressors, and numerous Glock “switches,” which are used to convert a semiautomatic Glock-style handgun into a machine pistol.
According to prosecutors, the defense argued Janisch had all those weapons because he was a “collector.”
Mercer Island home doubled as a drug shipping hub
Authorities said one of the rooms in Janisch’s Mercer Island home was used as an office, where he kept equipment for mailing drugs across the United States.
“In asking for an eight-year sentence, prosecutors wrote to the court, ‘Janisch engaged in the trafficking of MDMA, ketamine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and marijuana on such a scale that it netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug proceeds’” the release stated. “‘Janisch’s scheme was more sophisticated than many as he largely took drug orders via social media, packaged the drugs for shipment at his house, and coopted the U.S. mail service, and other parcel services, to deliver his product.’”
After he serves his six-year federal prison sentence, Janisch will be on three years of supervised release.
This story was originally posted on MyNorthwest.com
Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.