Rufus Nelson Jr., 35, was sentenced to forty years in prison for carjacking and other crimes this week, announced First Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester.
In September 2018, a federal jury heard evidence that on July 5, 2016, Nelson forced a woman at gunpoint to drive from Edmond to the south side of Oklahoma City.
While she was driving on Interstate 240 between May Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, Nelson shot her in the head. She survived but is now permanently blind. After she got out of the car and onto the median, two Good Samaritans stopped to provide medical assistance and called 911.
Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers found Nelson approximately one hour later skulking under the overpass at I-240 and Pennsylvania Avenue.
The jury convicted Nelson of being a felon in possession of ammunition, carjacking, kidnapping, and using and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.
Today, U.S. District Judge Robin J. Cauthron sentenced Nelson to 480 months—the equivalent of forty years—in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.
Nelson has been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest in July 2016.
This case is the result of an investigation by the Oklahoma City Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, with assistance from the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark R. Stoneman and Brandon Hale, the case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a Department of Justice program to reduce violent crime.
In October 2017, the Department announced the reinvigoration of Project Safe Neighborhoods and directed U.S. Attorney’s Offices to develop crime-reduction strategies that incorporate lessons federal law enforcement has learned since the program’s launch in 2001.
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