SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 A man in his 20s was sentenced to a year in federal prison for possessing ammunition on the day he barely survived a shooting that killed his friend, court records show.<\/p>\n
Marco Martinez, 28, was smoking marijuana at a bus stop near 24th and Mission Streets in 2021 when a man identified as Keshon Wilson approached and sprayed the area with bullets. Martinez was struck five times; his friend, 26-year-old Isaiah Cardenas, was killed, court records show. Wilson, 24, was later convicted of first degree murder.<\/p>\n
But while Martinez made it out of the harrowing incident alive, his legal problems were just beginning. He was carrying a loaded, unregistered pistol that day, and a prior robbery conviction made his gun possession illegal. He was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm later that year.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Senior U.S. District Judge Edward Chen sentenced Martinez to a year in federal prison, to run concurrently with a five-year prison term he\u2019s serving for carjacking. Martinez was also convicted of first degree burglary in 2024, court records show.<\/p>\n
As part of a plea agreement, Martinez also admitted to having a gun in 2022, when authorities raided his home, court records show. A prosecution sentencing memo describes him as a gang member who pointed a gun at his robbery victim in 2020, earning him his first felony.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors added that the 2021 shooting was the second time in his life he survived gunfire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat Martinez and his friend may have been shot in an unprovoked manner gives some credence to Martinez\u2019s claim that possessed a firearm to feel safe, as he was previously shot in the leg when he was 17 or 18,\u201d the sentencing memo says.<\/p>\n
In an interview with a probation officer, Martinez took responsibility for the offense, according to court records.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know having a gun makes my community less safe and I know that\u2019s bad,\u201d he said, according to the sentencing memo. \u201cI felt like I needed to have a gun because I had been shot. I know I need to have another way to feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinez\u2019s attorney asked Chen for a sentence of no additional jail time, arguing that he\u2019s already spent a lengthy time period in jail for the carjacking case and is looking to turn a corner in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has been thinking through his goals while in custody, and is extremely interested in becoming an HVAC technician, a job that is available to felons, and would enable him to support his family,\u201d Martinez\u2019s lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Samantha Jaffe, wrote in court filings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 A man in his 20s was sentenced to a year in federal prison for possessing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[861,862,36719,21807,101,103,36718,102,31108,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-60638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area-crime","tag-california-crime","tag-mission-nortenos","tag-norteno-gang","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-murder","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-shooting","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}