PORTLAND — A convicted felon from Boston was sentenced Monday to more than two years in federal prison for using a firearm at a shooting range in Gray.
Dane Mitchell, 26, was prohibited from having a gun because he was convicted of felony crimes in Massachusetts in 2016.
U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby sentenced Mitchell to 27 months in prison plus three years of supervised release for being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney Halsey Frank.
Mitchell pleaded guilty to that charge in August.
According to court records, on April 8, 2017, Mitchell and another person traveled to Gray where they rented guns, bought ammunition and fired the weapons at a shooting range.
Boston Police Department officers identified Mitchell and the shooting range from videos that were uploaded to Snapchat.
Mitchell was prohibited from possessing firearms as the result of his 2016 Massachusetts felony convictions for possessing a firearm without a permit and possessing a firearm with a defaced serial number.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Boston Police Department’s Youth Violence Strike Force. It was prosecuted as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make neighborhoods safer for everyone.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reinvigorated the program in 2017 as part of the department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all of the states’ U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement, and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.
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