A man who fled from police while in possession of a stolen and loaded gun and then, three weeks later, shot a different gun at the house of someone with whom he was angry, was sentenced today to more than eight years in federal prison.
Ivan Luckett Clay Jr., age 22, from Waterloo, Iowa, received the prison term after a May 2, 2022 guilty plea to carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug-trafficking crime and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Clay has a prior felony conviction for possessing marijuana with the intent to deliver it.
Evidence at the sentencing hearing demonstrated that, in April 2021, Clay possessed a stolen and loaded firearm, along with marijuana, in Waterloo. He was driving a car through Waterloo, with the firearm and a pound of marijuana, when law enforcement stopped his car. Clay fled from the police, crashed the car into a tree, and then continued to flee on foot until he was detained by officers. Three weeks later, using a different gun, Clay shot five times at a home of someone with whom he was angry, to scare them. Officers then searched Clay’s home and found the gun, over a pound of marijuana, and more than $4,000 in cash.
Clay was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams. Clay was sentenced to 103 months’ imprisonment and must also serve a 5-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. Clay is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Devra Hake and Assistant United States Attorneys Lisa Williams and Kyndra Lundquist. It was investigated by a Federal Task Force composed of the Waterloo Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms assisted by the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office and Cedar Falls Police Department.
This case is 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 gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 22-CR-2061.
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