Department of Justice

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — David McDaniels, 29, of Fairfield, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for possession of a stolen firearm, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, McDaniels has a lengthy criminal history, which includes multiple felony convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, and inflicting corporal injury on a spouse.

According to court documents, on May 22, 2018, law enforcement officers arrived at a motel room in Vacaville to search the room pursuant to the probation search terms of one of the room’s occupants. After identifying themselves as law enforcement and demanding entry into the room, the officers heard items inside the room rustling as well as the sound of a toilet bowl lid being removed and manipulated. The officers requested entry into the room once more and attempted to use a key to open the room, but the door was deadbolted from the inside.

Eventually, a shirtless male later identified as McDaniels opened the door. When one of the officers grabbed McDaniels’s hands to detain him, the officer noticed that both of McDaniels’s hands were wet. McDaniels told officers he had just gotten out of the shower. Police dispatch confirmed that there was an active warrant for his arrest and that he was on state parole following a burglary conviction. While this was happening, officers searched the air conditioning vent in the room. Inside the vent, officers found a stolen and loaded Ruger 9 mm pistol. The gun was wet, and there was a trail of water leading from the bathroom to a chair directly underneath the vent. A records check of the firearm’s serial number revealed that it was unregistered in the State of California.

This case was the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Vacaville Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Audrey Hemesath and Sam Stefanki 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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