Portland Man Sentenced for Illegally Possessing a Firearm

PORTLAND, Maine: A Portland man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Portland for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Torresen sentenced Mohamud Abdullahi, 32, to 75 months in prison to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Abdullahi pleaded guilty on August 19, 2024.

According to court records, on November 23, 2023, the Portland Police Department received reports of shots fired near the intersection of Commercial and Cross streets. A caller described the suspect pulling a firearm from his waistband and firing two shots into the air before getting into a vehicle, and also described the vehicle. The descriptions were later confirmed by security camera footage from a nearby building. Responding officers recovered two spent 9mm shell casings from the scene, and the vehicle was intercepted by South Portland police after it crossed the bridge into South Portland. After a brief attempt to flee, Abdullahi was arrested. The firearm used in the shooting was recovered the next day from the front lawn of a residence near where the vehicle was stopped.

Abdullahi was precluded from possessing firearms because of his prior convictions for assault and aggravated criminal trespass in 2017, and unlawful trafficking of scheduled drugs in 2011.

The FBI, Portland Police Department, and South Portland Police Department investigated the case.

Project Safe Neighborhoods: This case is 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 gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, visit https://www.justice.gov/usao-me/psn.

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