Chaparral, NM man sentenced to 57 months in prison for stealing El Paso cop’s guns

A federal judge in Las Cruces has sentenced 23-year-old Pete Richard Ferraro to 57 months in federal prison for unlawfully possessing stolen firearms.

Ferraro, of Chaparral, New Mexico, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release after his prison term ends.

His co-defendant Emanuel Medina, 24, of El Paso, was sentenced on Sept. 23, 2014, to 46 months in federal prison followed by two years of supervised release for a similar conviction.

Medina and Ferraro were arrested on a criminal complaint filed in Oct. 2013, charging them with unlawfully possessing firearms between Oct. 11, 2013 and Oct. 23, 2013, in Doa Ana County, N.M.

According to the complaint, on Oct. 22, 2013, an El Paso Police Department reported that a rifle and a shotgun were missing from his unmarked police vehicle.

The results of a latent prints examination revealed that Ferraro left his fingerprints on the police vehicle.

During the course of the investigation, Medina and Ferraro were interviewed and implicated themselves in the theft of the firearms. The firearms were recovered in two Chaparral residences.