A San Francisco man has been sentenced in federal court to nine years and six months in prison for having been an ex-felon in possession of a gun.
The sentencing of Valentino Johnson, 44, by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria on Sept. 25 was the second time Johnson was sentenced for his 2015 conviction.
Johnson was originally sentenced in 2016 by the trial judge in the case, now-retired U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, to eight years in prison.
But in 2017, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a resentencing, saying that Henderson should have considered Johnson’s previous robbery conviction a violent crime.
The designation of a previous violent crime increased the potential sentence under advisory federal sentencing guidelines for repeat offenders. Chhabria was assigned to the case after Henderson retired 2017.
Johnson had six previous felony convictions in state court and was on parole from a robbery sentence when he was arrested in a house in the Bayview district on the gun possession offense.
According to prosecution filings, an ex-girlfriend called the police and said Johnson was suicidal and was holding a gun to his head.
When police arrived at the house, which was the home of Johnson’s new girlfriend, they found Johnson unharmed and concluded the call was a false alarm. But they found the gun in the bedroom closet of the woman’s daughter.
