Ultimate magazine theme for WordPress.

Gun Possession Sends Evanston Man To Federal Prison For Nearly 8 Years

EVANSTON, IL — An Evanston man was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in federal prison last week after a jury found him guilty of illegal gun possession.

Darius Morales, 32, was arrested on May 8, 2019, and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm in connection following a high-speed chase through downtown Evanston that triggered lockdowns of local schools.

After hearing gunshots coming from an alley in the 2100 block of Dewey Avenue, an officer briefly pursued a Jeep that later crashed into the backyard of a home at the corner of Lincoln Street and Sherman Avenue. Officers arrested two men a few blocks north of the crime scene, police said.

The car’s driver, Twan Daniels-Robinson, pleaded guilty in state court to the offense of aggravated fleeing and eluding, according to court records.

Morales, who was linked by forensic evidence to a gun found at the scene, was convicted in August 2021 following a three-day trial in federal court in Chicago. That charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

“In the afternoon of May 8, 2019, [Morales] Tried to shoot a man in an alley by pointing a gun at him and discharging six rounds as the man fled for his life. His getaway driver led the police on a high-speed chase that could have caused a fatal car accident,” Assistant US Attorney Charles Mulaney said in a sentencing memo. “A guidelines sentence of ten years is appropriate in light of the seriousness of this offense , [Morales]’s history of flouting the law, and the fact that [his] guidelines calculation well-exceeds the ten-year statutory maximum.”

A federal court exhibit shows a silver Jeep Commander that fled Evanston police on the afternoon of May 8, 2019, authorities said. (US Attorney’s Office)

Morales’ attorney, Dena Singer, argued in a sentencing memo that there was no eyewitness testimony or physical evidence that showed that Morales was the shooter. Fingerprint and DNA evidence linking him to the gun does not necessarily show that Morales fired it immediately before the chase, Singer said.

The defense attorney pointed to testimony from Evanston Police Officer Tony Sosa, who tested he did not perform a gunshot residue test on Morales, which was unfamiliar with gunshot residue testing and that he had never in his 16-year career ordered anyone else to test someone’s hands when he thought they had fired a weapon, according to the memo.

Arguing for a prison sentence of three years and five months, Singer said that Morales had faced an exceptionally traumatic childhood that involved suffering severe, life-changing burns in a house fire at the age of 3 and experiencing physical and psychological abuse by his father.

Darius Morales, 32, was sentenced to nearly eight years in prison after a federal jury found him guilty of possessing a firearm as a felon. (Evanston Police Department)

The defense attorney also asked the judge to be cautious when evaluating Morales’ criminal history.

“[P]olice have been targeting Darius his whole life. Darius believes that from a young age the Evanston Police Department either wanted Darius to assist them or provide information to them. Darius consistently refused to do so,” Singer said. “This refusal created tension between Darius and the Evanston Police Department. In fact, at Darius’ detention hearing, the government tried to argue Darius was involved in his brother’s case but failed to be able to present any evidence connecting Darius to the case.”

At the time of the shooting, Morales’ older brother, Sheldon, had recently been released from federal prison after spending 108 months in prison in a drug case, according to prosecutors. Federal prosecutors charged Sheldon “Shock” Morales with cocaine distribution conspiracy back in 2011 as part of an FBI investigation into the Belizean Bloods street gang and its operations in Chicago and Evanston.

In a separate federal criminal complaint filed in November 2019, Mikhail Geyer, a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer formerly employed by the Evanston Police Department, said the DEA was conducting an investigation into a Violent drug trafficking organization led by Darius and Sheldon Morales.

According to Geyer, a confidential source who has known Darius Morales since childhood said the younger brother had taken over the organization after the 2013 conviction of Sheldon Morales — a known member of the Gangster Disciples street gang who had formed a narcotics trafficking venture with members of the Black P Stone street gang about a decade earlier.

Federal investigators used wiretaps to establish that Sheldon Morales was sending heroin through the mail, Geyer alleged. On March 1, 2019, officers got a search warrant to search a package mailed from California to an address on Davis Street in Evanston and turned up 5.43 kilograms of methamphetamine and about 827 grams of fentanyl, according to the complaint.

The judge designated to preside over Darius Morales’ case, Amy St. Eve, of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, found that Morales was the person who fired the gun in the alley, according to the US attorney’s office.

St. Eve imposed a sentence of 94 months in prison at his sentencing hearing Friday, with credit for 51 days spent in state custody on the same conduct. He was also ordered to pay $100, forfeit ownership of the gun and remain on court supervision for three years following its release.

Darius Morales, 32, of Evanston,was convicted of being a felon in possession of this firearm and sentenced to 94 months in federal prison last week. (Evanston Police Department)

Related: Federal Jury Finds Felon Guilty Of Firearm Possession In Evanston

Comments are closed.