PORTLAND, Maine — A Lewiston man with a long criminal history in Massachusetts was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court to 18 years in federal prison in connection with his firing a gun near children waiting to board a school bus earlier this year.
In addition to prison time, U.S. District Judge Jon Levy sentenced Jerome Hudson, 44, formerly of Danvers, Massachusetts, to five years of supervised release after he completes his prison term, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
He pleaded guilty in June to one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition. He has been held without bail since his arrest by Lewiston police on Jan. 13. He was indicted April 9 by the federal grand jury, and the pending state charges were dismissed.
The defendant was living in a Lewiston townhouse apartment with his girlfriend and her young children on Jan. 13, according to court documents. Shortly before 8 a.m., Hudson reportedly got into an argument with the father of the children when the father arrived to help them get on the school bus, as he did each school day.
Hudson retrieved a 9 mm handgun from the apartment, ran outside, chased and fired three shots at the father as the nearby school children began filing outside the townhouse to catch their bus, according to the prosecution version of events to which Hudson pleaded guilty.
He then fled the scene on foot without his shoes, leaving behind four spent shell casings, according to court documents. Hudson allegedly later hid from the police for several hours at a neighbor’s townhouse where he was given running shoes before fleeing again.
“The defendant was captured three hours later,” the prosecution version of events said. “At the time of his arrest, upon being searched and there being no firearm located, the defendant made the following unsolicited statement: ‘You guys have my ammo, and that’s all you’re getting. You won’t find the gun.’”
Hudson later told police that he had thrown the gun down a storm drain at the apartment complex where he fired the shots. The weapon was never recovered, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
During a search of the bedroom Hudson shared with the children’s mother in the townhouse, investigators found a safe containing 38 rounds of ammunition, some of which matched that used to shoot at the father, court documents said.
Because of Hudson’s prior convictions between 1997 and 2005 in Massachusetts for drug trafficking, armed robbery, assaults with dangerous weapons and other violent acts, he was deemed an armed career criminal. He faced a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Under the prevailing federal sentencing guidelines, Hudson faced a recommended sentence of between 15 years and eight months and 19 years and seven months.
In a press release issued Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office said that Levy’s main focus in imposing the lengthy sentence was “the need to protect the public from further crimes by Hudson.”
The investigation was conducted by the Lewiston Police Department, the Central Maine Violent Crime Task Force and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.