A St. Cloud man has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for illegally possessing multiple firearms as a felon, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced last week.
Charges in the case against Roberto Antwan Williams, now 39, followed the death of a five-year-old child in St. Cloud in November 2020 whom authorities determined had been accidentally shot in the head by a gun illegally possessed by Williams.
According to an affidavit filed in the case, law enforcement was notified that a five-year-old child had been shot in the head and declared dead at a St. Cloud hospital. Williams and his fiancé, the child’s mother, were at the hospital and stated they were shopping when they got a phone call that the child had been injured, Luger’s office said in a press release. Williams claimed that they immediately returned home and took the child to the hospital together. However, law enforcement obtained surveillance video from a neighboring residence that showed the fiancé taking the child to the hospital alone while Williams placed two backpacks in a garbage bin outside of the house, the press release said.
Law enforcement obtained a search warrant for his residence and garbage bins. Inside the bins, they discovered the two backpacks that contained a semiautomatic rifle and a purple Taurus model G2C 9mm semiautomatic pistol with an extended magazine, according to the press release. The Taurus had the deceased child’s blood on it. Law enforcement also searched Williams’ cellphone and found a picture of the purple Taurus 9mm semiautomatic pistol with the text “my new toy,” the press release said.
Four months prior to the shooting death of the child, Williams had also been arrested following an attempted armed robbery of a man outside a St. Cloud apartment building. At the time of his arrest following the robbery, law enforcement found a firearm in his vehicle’s glovebox with his DNA on it.
The federal complaint against Williams identified numerous prior convictions against him in Cook County, Ill., between 2002 and 2010, including sexual assault, several weapons convictions, and “armed habitual criminal” that would preclude him from possessing firearms.
Williams was convicted by a federal jury on Aug. 29, 2023, on two counts of possession of firearms as a felon and was sentenced last week in U.S. District Court by U.S. District Judge Ann D. Montgomery.
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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Crime Watch MN
Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
