HARRISBURG—Attorney General Josh Shapiro is announcing that a Philadelphia man was sentenced to 9.5-20 years in prison for firearm and drug offenses yesterday. Douglas Gonzales, 28, of Philadelphia, was arrested in 2016 and pleaded guilty to a Violation of the Firearms Act on August 13, 2018. While his sentence for this conviction was pending, he immediately returned to engaging in an illicit narcotics business. As a result, he was arrested again 17 days later on August 30, 2018 as part of the Office of Attorney General’s Kensington Initiative.
Agents executed a search warrant on the defendant’s residence on August 30th and confiscated an AR-15 rifle, a handgun, pieces of a handgun, a ballistic vest, ammunition, heroin, marijuana, and packaging materials for narcotics. The AR-15 was found under a mattress upon which his infant was sleeping. He was prohibited from possessing a gun due to a previous drug conviction. His bail was revoked shortly after this arrest.
“The defendant was a convicted felon and prohibited from owning a firearm, but he brazenly flouted those laws and endangered his community by possessing illegal guns and distributing dangerous drugs,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro. “He even kept an AR-15 rifle under the mattress of the bed on which his child was sleeping. Thanks to the hard work of and strong collaboration between our Kensington Initiative partners, we are taking these poisons off our streets and working to restore some peace of mind for the people of Kensington.”
The defendant was also later charged by the Attorney General’s Gun Violence Task Force with another count of Felon in Possession of a Firearm based on video footage that showed him loading and firing a gun at an area shooting range.
The defendant pleaded guilty to Conspiracy, Possession with Intent to Deliver, and Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act in May 2019. Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Melissa Francis prosecuted the case.
The Kensington Initiative is a collaboration among federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to target major criminal drug organizations in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. It is an intelligence-led partnership between the Office of Attorney General, the Philadelphia Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Bureau of Investigation, SEPTA Transit Police, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Pennsylvania National Guard.
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