East Peoria Man Sentenced to 42 Months in Prison for Unlawful Possession of a Firearm

PEORIA, Ill. – An East Peoria, Ill., man, Joshua Dunn, 29, of the 100 block of Callender Street, was sentenced to 42 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, on September 8, 2021, for possessing a firearm as a felon.

U.S. District Court Judge Joe Billy McDade cited Dunn’s felony record and the fact that the firearm was stolen in imposing sentence. According to court documents, Dunn has two prior felony convictions for domestic battery and was on supervised release at the time of this offense.

At the sentencing hearing, the court heard evidence that Dunn had stolen the Glock 9mm firearm from his family’s residence and lied to law enforcement about its whereabouts. The East Peoria Police Department later found the firearm with Dunn at a local hotel.

Dunn pleaded guilty to the single-count indictment on April 30, 2021. He has remained in the custody of the United States Marshals Service since his arrest on January 10, 2020.

The East Peoria Police Department investigated the case with assistance of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the Pekin Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine G. Legge represented the government in the prosecution.

The case was brought as part of The Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative. The Department’s renewed commitment to Project Safe Neighborhoods establishes four fundamental principles to guide efforts to reduce violent crime: 1) build trust and legitimacy within communities; 2) invest in community-based prevention and intervention programs; 3) target enforcement and priorities to focus resources on identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the most significant drivers of gun violence and other violent crime; and, 4) measure results with the goal to reduce the level of violence in our communities and not to increase the number of arrests and prosecutions as if they were ends in themselves.