SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Maurice Darnell Jones, Jr., 22, of Vacaville, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to four years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm, U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced.
According to court documents, on Aug. 27, 2017, the Vacaville Police Department received a call about an auto burglary in progress. The caller described a male suspect fleeing in a silver sedan. Moments later, police identified a car matching the description. When an officer tried to stop the car, the driver fled for several blocks, and then parked his car and began running from police. Police recovered various items in and around the car that showed ties to Jones, including paperwork in the trunk with Jones’s name on it, and a cellphone next to the car that was determined to be Jones’s phone. In addition, police located a.40-caliber handgun in the area where Jones had fled. Ammunition from the gun matched ammunition found with Jones’s belongings in an apartment unit nearby. Jones cannot lawfully possess firearms because he previously has been convicted of two felony offenses.
This case was the product of an investigation by the Vacaville Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Solano County Violent Crimes Task Force, with assistance from the Solano County District Attorney’s Office.
This case was brought as a part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department of Justice’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally based strategies to reduce violent crime.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
