A man charged with attempted murder for a shooting in Portland’s Old Port in 2015 has agreed to plead guilty to a related federal charge.

Moses Okot, 28, was arrested in November 2015 near the site of a late-night shooting. A Portland police officer who was in the Old Port at the time of the shooting saw Okot driving fast out of the area, gave chase and arrested Okot after he ran from his car on Oxford Street. Authorities said they recovered a gun from the floor of Okot’s car and tests indicated that he had gunpowder residue on his hand.

Federal authorities charged Okot with being a felon in possession of a gun. He was barred from having a gun following his conviction for murder in 2011.

Okot was indicted by a Cumberland County grand jury last November on aggravated attempted murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and reckless conduct with a firearm charges. No trial date has been set for those charges.

According to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Okot will change his plea on the federal charge to guilty at a hearing next week. He had been scheduled to stand trial in April on the federal charge.

According to the plea agreement filed in federal court, Okot will be sentenced to ten years in prison, to run consecutively to time a sentence of 5 1/2 years in Cumberland County after his probation was revoked and also concurrent with the sentence he receives in the state case, if any. He could have faced up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on the federal charge.

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The two men allegedly shot by Okot recovered.

Okot pleaded guilty in July 2011 to a charge of felony murder after driving the getaway car from the scene of a fatal shooting in Parkside in 2010.

Okot pleaded as part of an agreement with prosecutors in the shooting death of 24-year-old Serge Mulongo. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but three years suspended, and four years of probation.

Correction: This story was updated at 9:03 a.m. on Thursday, March 23, 2017 to correct the number of years Moses Okot will be sentenced to.


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