Leonard C Boyle, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that JOSE PEREZ, 40, of Hartford, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in Hartford to 33 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. On September 24, 2021, a jury found Perez guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
According to the evidence and testimony at trial, on November 13, 2016, Hartford Police detectives responding to a ShotSpotter activation recovered a loaded revolver in a car last registered to Perez and containing documents addressed to Perez in the glove box. DNA analysis of the seized firearm indicated Perez had handled the firearm.
Prior to November 2016, Perez had sustained state felony convictions for narcotics and burglary offenses. It is a violation of federal law for a person previously convicted of a felony offense to possess a firearm or ammunition that has moved in interstate or foreign commerce.
Perez was apprehended on January 19, 2021.
Perez, who was released on bond, was remanded to custody at the conclusion of today’s court proceeding.
This matter was investigated by the Hartford Police Department and the FBI’s Connecticut Violent Crime Task Force, with the assistance of the Connecticut Forensic Science Laboratory. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tara E. Levens and Maria del Pilar Gonzalez.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), 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.