Man to spend nearly a decade in prison for illegal firearm possession charges
A member of the Lows street gang in Minneapolis will be spending time in federal prison after being convicted of all charges filed against him.
Court documents show 28-year-old Clenest Wells Jr. was sentenced Wednesday to spend a little under 10 years (116 months) in prison and three years of probation for three counts of illegal firearm possession and one count of illegal machine gun possession.
During Wells' sentencing, a release notes Judge Donovan Frank said, "The amount of gun violence we are having in Minnesota is just off the charts."
Records show the jury took less than two hours to reach their all-guilty verdict back in April. Evidence shown at the trial by prosecutors proved Wells was found to have a firearm at three different times between 2020 and 2023 by police. Wells had previously been convicted of six felonies.
"Minneapolis belongs to the families who ride the bus to work, the parents who take their children to school, and the residents who build this community, not to felons who terrorize it. Wells is a six-time felon armed with guns and a switch who threatened an innocent passenger on a Minneapolis bus," said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson following the sentencing, noting a 2020 incident where prosecutors say police found a semi-automatic pistol on Wells after responding to a call about a passenger threatening another passenger.
Another incident where Wells had a firearm on him was in July of 2023, when police say they found a Glock pistol with a "switch" device on it to move it into a fully automatic weapon, allowing it to fire 10 rounds under a second.
Wells was one of 14 alleged gang members charged in a 2023 crackdown, and charges were filed against members of the Lows, Highs, Bloods and 10z/20z gangs, authorities say. Earlier that year, authorities announced Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges against 45 alleged gang members.