WILLIAMSPORT — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (USAO - Pennsylvania, Middle), published as received.

WILLIAMSPORT - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that on December 7, 2021, Joshair Jones, age 19, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Matthew W. Brann for possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Jones possessed the firearm between August 1 and August 16, 2020. The firearm was recovered by law enforcement on August 16, 2020, and further analysis of the weapon revealed fingerprints that were a match for Joshair Jones. 

At the sentencing hearing, the United Stated presented evidence of Jones’s involvement in a shooting that occurred on July 31, 2020, in Williamsport, along with Jones’s possession of a rifle on August 16, 2020.   The Court listened to recorded phone calls in which Joshair Jones acknowledged his role in the shooting and discussed a potential retaliatory shooting that individuals threatened would occur in a residential neighborhood in Williamsport.  The United States also played a phone call in which Jones directed another individual to bring him a semi-automatic rifle on August 16, 2020.  That rifle was recovered by law enforcement on August 19, 2020. 

In sentencing the defendant to the maximum allowed, Chief Judge Brann called Jones one of the more dangerous individuals who had come before him.

The investigation was conducted by the Pennsylvania State Police, the Williamsport Bureau of Police, the Lycoming County Narcotics Enforcement Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.  Assistant United States Attorney Alisan V. Martin prosecuted the case.

This case is being prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.

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