Waterloo Man Sentenced to Prison for Shooting at Crowd Outside of Bar

A Waterloo man who shot at a crowd outside a Waterloo nightclub was sentenced today to more than five years in prison.

O’Shea Taelly Wright, age 27, from Waterloo, received the prison term after a November 3, 2023, guilty plea to possession of ammunition by a felon.

Information disclosed during the plea and sentencing hearing revealed that Wright was involved in a fight outside a Waterloo nightclub on December 31, 2022.   Multiple people were involved in the fight.  During the fight, Wright walked to the SUV he had arrived at the nightclub in and retrieved a firearm from the front passenger seat.  Wright then fired multiple shots toward a group of people fighting nearby.  No one was shot or injured by Wright.  At the time, Wright was a felon based on a drug conviction and was on probation for that felony conviction. 

Wright was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand.  Wright was sentenced to 66 months’ imprisonment.  He must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ashley Corkery and investigated by the Waterloo Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. 

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 23-CR-2036.

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