CHICAGO - A convicted felon from Chicago has been found guilty of illegally possessing a loaded handgun with an extended magazine and obstructing justice for offering to pay witnesses to lie on his behalf.
RAMONE SHAFFERS illegally possessed the gun on Oct. 16, 2016, in a parked car in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Shaffers had previously been convicted of a felony and was not legally allowed to possess a firearm.
Three passengers were in the vehicle at the time of Shaffers’s illegal possession. After Shaffers was arrested, he directed another individual to offer payment to the passengers in exchange for giving false testimony.
A federal jury in Chicago on Thursday convicted Shaffers, 37, of Chicago, on one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon, and one count of obstruction of justice. Each count is punishable by up to ten years in federal prison. U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr., set sentencing for April 14, 2020.
The conviction was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Timothy Jones, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and Charlie Beck, interim Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Albert Berry III and Kavitha J. Babu.
According to evidence presented at the four-day trial in federal court, Shaffers and the three others were inside a vehicle parked near 62nd Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. Chicago Police officers pulled behind the car and smelled burnt cannabis and heard loud music. Shaffers, who was sitting in the driver’s seat, stepped out of the vehicle and ran away. He was apprehended at a later time.
While in custody awaiting trial, Shaffers placed a call from jail to the individual whom he hoped would pay off the passengers in the car in exchange for their false testimony. In one of the calls, which was surreptitiously recorded by law enforcement, Shaffers explained what the witnesses should say on his behalf: “Everybody could say he didn’t have nothing. He was there, but he ain’t have nothing." Shaffers later described what he hoped would happen to his federal indictment as a result of the false testimony: “They gonna throw that [expletive] right out. Motion out. Everything is thrown out."
Holding convicted felons accountable through federal prosecution is a centerpiece of Project Safe Neighborhoods - the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction strategy. In the Northern District of Illinois, U.S. Attorney Lausch and law enforcement partners have deployed the PSN program to attack a broad range of violent crime issues facing the district, including by prosecuting individuals who illegally possess firearms. The U.S. Attorney’s Office also participates in Project Guardian, an initiative from the Department of Justice that serves as a complementary effort to PSN. Project Guardian focuses specifically on investigating, prosecuting, and preventing gun crimes, and it emphasizes the importance of using modern technologies to promote gun crime intelligence.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
