Lewiston Man Sentenced to Over Six Years on Firearm Charge

PORTLAND, Maine: A Lewiston man was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Portland for possession of a firearm by a felon, U.S. Attorney Halsey B. Frank announced.

U.S. District Judge George Z. Singal sentenced Gage Henry, 21, to 78 months in prison and three years of supervised release. Henry pleaded guilty to the charge on January 28, 2020.

On June 20, 2019, law enforcement officers, possessing a state arrest warrant for Henry, located him in a Lewiston motel room in possession of a loaded .45 caliber pistol. Investigators later recovered his DNA from the surface of the pistol. At the time he possessed the pistol, he was on Maine state probation for a prior violent crime.

Records from the Androscoggin County Superior Court reflect that on October 23, 2017, Henry was convicted of Aggravated Assault, a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year, and was therefore prohibited from possessing firearms under federal law.

When pronouncing sentence, Judge Singal stated, “I’m mostly concerned with violence here,” and, “What we’ve had here is an escalation of violence … that could lead to severe consequences for society.”

The Lewiston and Auburn Police Departments, the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case.

This case was part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all 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.