United States Attorney Richard B. Roper
Northern District of Texas

WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS, MAN CONVICTED IN
PROJECT SAFE NEIGHBORHOODS CASE

DALLAS — Following a two-day trial, a federal jury in U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater’s court convicted Wichita Falls, Texas resident, Mario Ramon McGowan, for being a felon in possession of a firearm, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas. McGowan, 37, faces a maximum statutory sentence of 10 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Fitzwater on April 25, 2008.

The evidence presented at trial showed that on the morning of December 29, 2006, McGowan assaulted an individual at a Wichita Falls, Texas motel with a handgun wrapped in a towel. The victim believed that McGowan was trying to rob him. As McGowan attempted to leave the motel parking lot in a pickup truck with a female passenger, deputies with the Wichita County Sheriff’s Office arrived at the motel to investigate an unrelated matter. The victim approached the deputies and informed them that McGowan, who was driving the pickup, had just threatened him with a gun.

The Government presented further evidence that the deputies attempted to stop McGowan to investigate the complaint but McGowan refused to obey and a high-speed chase ensued. McGowan drove through residential streets in Wichita Falls at speeds up to 75 miles per hour with wet road conditions, disregarding traffic lights and stop signs in the process. The pickup truck spun out of control and McGowan got out of the vehicle and fled into a nearby house, where sheriff’s deputies and officers with the Wichita Falls Police Department found him hiding in a closet and arrested him.

Testimony revealed that since law enforcement officers didn’t find a gun on McGowan or in the pickup truck, they questioned his female passenger who told them that McGowan handed her a towel and a gun and instructed her to throw them out of the window during the police chase. The female then led the deputies to the location where she discarded the towel and gun, and there they found a .38 caliber revolver, a leather holster, and a towel that matched the one identified by the victim. The location where the deputies recovered these items was along the route that McGowan took to avoid the deputies.

The case was adopted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office under the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, a nationwide effort which targets gun crime.

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the ATF, the Wichita County Sheriff’s Office and the Wichita Falls Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gary Tromblay and Camille Sparks are prosecuting the case.

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