East St. Louis Man Sentenced to Prison for Firearm Offenses

Donald S. Boyce, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced that on January 10, 2018, Bernard L. Cherry, 30, of Granite City, Illinois, was sentenced after being convicted of one count of felon in possession of a firearm. In July 2017, a federal jury in East St. Louis convicted Cherry after a two-day jury trial.

At the time of his arrest, Cherry was on supervised release in two separate prior federal cases involving convictions for felon in possession. Petitions to revoke his supervised release were filed in both cases after Cherry’s arrest. The Honorable David R. Herndon sentenced Cherry to a total of 84 months in federal prison on the conviction as well as the two supervised release revocation cases. Cherry’s prison sentence is to be followed by three years of supervised release, along with a fine of $375 and a $100 special assessment. Cherry also agreed to forfeit the illegal firearm that he possessed.

Court proceedings revealed that on December 13, 2016, East St. Louis police officers responded to a 911 call and discovered Cherry, a previously convicted felon, standing by his vehicle in the front yard of an abandoned house. Officers spotted and recovered a loaded pistol on the ground by Cherry’s feet.

The case was investigated by the East St. Louis Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Christopher Hoell and Derek Wiseman.