MISSOULA-Billings resident Joseph Wayne Waters was sentenced on Thursday to four years in federal prison and three years of supervised release for his conviction of illegally possessing firearms, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said.
Waters, 39, pleaded guilty in September to being a prohibited person in possession of firearms.
Chief U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen presided at sentencing.
Waters was charged after an incident on Jan. 20, 2018 in Bozeman in which Waters fired a shot at a truck, hitting it in the tailgate, during a pursuit. Waters and two others were driving in Bozeman when the driver of Waters’ vehicle saw her ex-husband and began following his vehicle at a fairly high rate of speed. Waters called the ex-husband during the pursuit and law enforcement officers obtained phone records that reflected those calls. Eventually, Waters fired a shot at the truck.
When the chase ended, the driver consented to a search of her vehicle and officers seized three firearms from Waters’ backpack. The firearms included a.32 caliber revolver, a 9mm pistol and a.40 caliber pistol.
Waters, having been convicted of a felony aggravated assault in 1997 in Montana, was prohibited from possessing firearms.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Racicot prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Bozeman Police Department and the Missoula Police Department.
The case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), which is the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.
XXX
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
