A Paterson man has been convicted in federal court of illegally possessing ammunition as a convicted felon, after a 2024 foot chase in which New Jersey State Police troopers said he threw away a homemade firearm fitted with a high-capacity drum magazine, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced on Friday, November 6. A federal jury in Newark found Kendale Wilson, 39, guilty following a three-day trial.
Source: NJ Today, reporting the U.S. Attorney's Office announcement
The jury returned its verdict after a three-day trial before U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti in Newark, U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer announced. The charge on which Wilson was convicted is being a felon in possession of ammunition — a federal offence that, as announced in this case, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The chase near Union Avenue and Jasper Street
According to the evidence at trial, state troopers patrolling Paterson on April 6, 2024, saw Wilson near Union Avenue and Jasper Street. He ran down an alley, and during the chase he pulled a homemade firearm fitted with a high-capacity drum magazine holding 30 rounds from under his sweatshirt and threw it toward a driveway, prosecutors said.
Wilson jumped a fence and kept running until other officers caught him around the corner, according to prosecutors. Officers recovered the gun, the broken drum magazine and 29 rounds of 9mm ammunition scattered across the driveway. Those recovered items — the homemade firearm, the broken magazine and the scattered rounds — became the physical evidence at the centre of the trial in Newark.
The felon-in-possession-of-ammunition charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Sentencing is scheduled for March 23, 2027, before U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti.
Why the charge is about ammunition
Federal gun prosecutions in New Jersey are routinely brought by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark against people whose prior felony convictions bar them from possessing firearms or ammunition, and this case was charged on the ammunition the jury found Wilson possessed. The trial therefore turned on the evidence from the April 2024 chase — what troopers saw, what Wilson threw away as he ran, and what officers recovered from the driveway — rather than on any allegation that the homemade firearm was fired.
Special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under Special Agent in Charge Beau Kolodka, and the New Jersey State Police, under Superintendent Jeanne Hengemuhle, investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jake A. Nasar prosecuted it, and Wilson is represented by attorney John McMahon, according to the announcement reported by NJ Today.
The verdict was the second New Jersey federal gun-and-gang result announced by U.S. Attorney Frazer's office on the same Friday: in Newark, a jury also convicted two Bloods members, Tyler Shorter and Amir Canty, on all counts in a racketeering and murder case after a three-week trial. Together, the two verdicts underline how much of New Jersey's serious gun-crime docket is now run through the federal courthouse in Newark, a short drive from the Punjabi communities of Edison, Carteret and Jersey City, where federal prosecutions of this kind are closely watched.
What happens next
Wilson will return to federal court in Newark for sentencing on March 23, 2027, when Judge Martinotti will impose a sentence within the maximum announced for the charge — up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. No other court date in the case was announced with the verdict. The U.S. Attorney's announcement did not report any statement from Wilson or his lawyer in response to the jury's decision.