CHRISTIANSTED — A St. Croix man who accepted mail packages suspected of containing firearms was given one year in prison by a federal judge, authorities said today.
Moises Figueroa, Jr., 48, of St. Croix, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Wilma A. Lewis to 12 months imprisonment on his conviction of being a felon in possession of a firearm, U.S. Attorney Delia L. Smith said.
Judge Lewis also sentenced Figueroa to two years of supervised release, a fine of $2,000.00, and a special assessment of $100.
“Figueroa was detained in the parking lot of the Frederiksted Post Office after picking up the parcels.,” court documents reveal. “The agents confiscated a loaded Taurus Millennium Pro semiautomatic pistol from Figueroa’s waistband.”.
According to court documents, on May 26, 2021, federal law enforcement agents conducted a controlled delivery at the Frederiksted Post Office in St. Croix of two packages containing firearms. Figueroa was arrested after he collected both packages at which time federal agents seized a loaded Taurus semi-automatic pistol from Figueroa’s waistband.
Figueroa was charged with illegally possessing the Taurus semi-automatic pistol knowing that he was convicted of a felony in 2007, namely Unauthorized Possession of a Firearm, in People of the Virgin Islands v. Moises Figueroa, SX-06-CR-504.
The United States Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms investigated the case, and Assistant United States
Attorney Daniel H. Huston prosecuted the case.
This case was part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods Initiative. Project Safe Neighborhoods is a nationwide initiative that brings together federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and community leaders to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in a community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. For more information on the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods, please see: https://www.justice.gov/psn.