PORTLAND, Maine — A federal court judge sentenced a local man involved in two shootings in Portland’s Old Port to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for illegally possessing a handgun that was used in one of the shootings.
In March, Moses Okot pleaded guilty to being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. As part of a deal with federal prosecutors, he agreed to the maximum 10-year sentence plus three years of supervised release, which he is to complete after serving a 5½-year term in state prison for violating his probation conditions.
Okot was on probation after having pled guilty to felony murder for driving the getaway car in a 2010 murder of Serge Mulongo. Okot was to sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but three years suspended for his role in that crime, while another man, Daudoit Butsitsi, received 38 years in prison for the murder.
In November 2015, while out on probation, Okot used the gun he was convicted for possessing to shoot two people standing on the sidewalk in the Old Port, according to a statement from the United States Attorney’s office. He also stabbed a third man, according to the Portland Press Herald, before driving away from the scene.
Police later found the gun in Okot’s car and the man himself hiding on a third-floor porch, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Okot’s lawyer, Daphne Hallett Donahue, said he pleaded guilty in state court to charges related to the 2015 shooting and is awaiting sentencing. She called the federal sentence “a really fair result.”