Pittsburg County Resident Sentenced For Federal Firearm Offense

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Willie Ray Carter, age 36, of Haileyville, Oklahoma, was sentenced to five years in prison for one count of Felon in Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition.

The charge arose from an investigation by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

On May 11, 2023, Carter pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.  According to investigators, on November 13, 2021, an OHP trooper conducting a routine traffic stop discovered Carter to be knowingly in possession of a firearm and ammunition after having been previously convicted a crime punishable by more than one year imprisonment.

The Honorable William P. Johnson, U.S. Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, sitting by assignment, presided over the hearing in Muskogee, Oklahoma.  Carter will remain in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant United States Attorneys Richard J. Lorenz and Edith Singer represented the United States.