Stilwell Resident Sentenced For Federal Firearm Crime

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Josiah Byron White, age 24, of Stilwell, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.

The charge arose from investigations by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

On October 12, 2022, White pleaded guilty to an Information on one count of discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.  According to investigators, White and the victim were visiting a Tahlequah residence on June 6, 2022, when White shot the victim twice in the back with a small caliber firearm and fled the scene of the crime.  The crime occurred in Cherokee County, within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable Ronald A. White, Chief Judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, presided over the hearings in Muskogee.  Josiah Byron White will remain in 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 Attorney James Seaman represented the United States at the sentencing hearing.