Fifteen Years In Federal Prison For Nashville Man Who Illegally Possessed Firearm

Lengthy Criminal Record Qualifies as Armed Career Criminal

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – August 3, 2020 - A Nashville man arrested during a 2017 traffic stop has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney Don Cochran for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Brandon Desean Wells, 33, was sentenced Friday to the mandatory minimum sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm and being qualified as an Armed Career Criminal, which subjected him to a mandatory sentence enhancement. 

Wells was arrested by officers with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department on April 20, 2017, after he was found to be a passenger in a vehicle which was stopped for traffic violations.  Wells was observed making furtive movements and after exiting the vehicle, he refused to comply with officer’s commands to place his hands behind his back.  After physically gaining compliance and handcuffing Wells, the officers found a loaded semi-automatic pistol in his waistband.  Wells was also in possession of hydrocodone pills and drug trafficking paraphernalia and told the officers he was under the influence of cocaine and other drugs. 

Wells was indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2018 and pleaded guilty in January of this year.  Well’s criminal record dates back to his teenage years and includes multiple convictions for armed robbery, drug trafficking and firearm offenses, including a prior six-year federal prison sentence for illegal firearms possession for an offense that occurred only weeks after being placed on probation in state court.

U.S. Attorney Cochran commended the actions of the officers of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms & Explosives, along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Montminy in bringing this case and removing a dangerous criminal from the community.