A Cedar Rapids man who unlawfully possessed a firearm and ammunition as a drug user was sentenced March 22, 2022, to more than four years in federal prison.
Deanye Bowman-Owens, age 22, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after an August 24, 2021 guilty plea to one count of possession of ammunition by a drug user.
Evidence disclosed at sentencing showed that, on August 24, 2021, officers with the Cedar Rapids Police Department were dispatched to an apartment complex after receiving a report of individuals holding a handgun in the bed of a pickup truck. After officers arrived, they recovered a loaded .45 caliber handgun with a twenty-seven round extended magazine in the bed of the pickup truck and located Bowman-Owens in the driver’s seat. Later, officers searched Bowman-Owens and recovered marijuana and a magazine that matched the .45 caliber handgun. Bowman-Owens’s fingerprint was located on one of the rounds of ammunition contained in the magazine recovered from his pocket. Bowman-Owens later admitted to using marijuana consistently for the four months prior to the incident. At sentencing, the court found Bowman-Owens possessed the .45 caliber handgun.
Bowman-Owens was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams. Bowman-Owens was sentenced to 51 months’ imprisonment. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). PSN 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.
Bowman-Owens is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dillan Edwards and investigated by the Cedar Rapids Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 21-CR-00026.
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