Boswell Resident Sentenced To Five Years For Involuntary Manslaughter

MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA – The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced that Chase Lane Rocha, age 21, of Boswell, Oklahoma, was sentenced to 60 months in prison for one count of Involuntary Manslaughter in Indian Country.

The charges arose from investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma Lighthorse Police, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Oklahoma.

On October 4, 2023, Rocha was found guilty by a federal jury at trial of one count of Involuntary Manslaughter in Indian Country.  According to investigators, on January 24, 2023, after family members had twice disarmed him during a dispute at a Boswell-area residence, Rocha returned a third time, armed with a revolver.  During the third attempt to disarm Rocha of a firearm, Rocha shot and killed the victim.    The crime occurred in Choctaw County, within the boundaries of the Choctaw Nation Reservation, in the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

The Honorable David C. Joseph, U.S. District Judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, sitting by assignment, presided over the hearing in Muskogee.  Rocha was remanded into the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending transportation to a designated United States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve a non-paroleable sentence of incarceration.

Assistant United States Attorney Patrick M. Flanigan and Special Assistant United States Attorney Genevieve Ozark represented the United States at trial.