Sentence for Wyoming Felon’s Gun Charge Sticks in Court after Appeal

There will be no sentence modifications for a Cheyenne man accused of being a felon in possession of a firearm after stealing a vehicle along with a handgun in the glovebox.

In February last year, Joseph Perez parked his new Honda Civic outside a donut shop in Central Avenue in Cheyenne.

Court records state he either left the key fob in the vehicle or dropped it on his way into the donut shop.

When he returned a few minutes later, the Honda was gone.

Perez called the authorities and then used a tracking app on his phone to find the vehicle's location, parked a few blocks away from the shop in a residential neighborhood. Perez then discovered his 9 mm pistol he kept in the glovebox was missing.

Realizing he would need a replacement key fob to start the vehicle, he left. Then he received an alert from his app that the Honda was moving again. Perez and a friend drove around trying to follow the vehicle and calling 911 to give updates about its location.

A chase with law enforcement ensued. The suspect, later revealed to be Santos Munoz Jr., drove over 60 mph down the wrong direction of a one-way street an dcrashed into a tree on 19th street.

Munoz got out and dropped something on the ground, tripped and fell, then got up again and took off running. It was only a brief pursuit before officers took him into custody. Officers later found the handgun in the vicinity he was seen dropping something.

The State charged Munoz with felony theft, felon in possession of a firearm, and felony eluding. After a one-day jury trial, the jury found him guilty of all three charges.

The district court sentenced Mr. Munoz to four-to-six years in prison on the theft charge, to be served concurrently to a sentence of two-to-three years in prison on the felon in possession of a firearm charge, and consecutively to a sentence of 338 days in jail for the eluding charge. The district court gave Mr. Munoz credit for the 338 days he had already served against his eluding sentence.

Following a timely appeal, the court upholds the sentence based on circumstantial evidence.

Munoz contested that the prosecutors could prove he possessed the handgun because no one testified they saw him "handling" it and that it was merely in the vehicle. The court did not, however, see it that way.