(SNews) – A federal judge has thrown the book at a Chicago looter by sentencing him to 69 months in federal prison for illegally possessing a loaded semiautomatic handgun during the violent Black Lives Matter riots and looting in May of 2020.

28-year-old Ricky Green of Chicago was charged with illegally possessing a gun while looting on the night of May 31, 2020.

He was arrested in the Lake View neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side.

Green and other individuals attempted to break into a Target store in the 3300 block of North Ashland Avenue.

“The defendant made a calculated decision to carry the gun while committing another serious crime, attempted burglary,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Corey B. Rubenstein and Sushma Raju said in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

“He brought that gun into the chaos accompanying the pervasive looting and vandalism.

“The defendant’s deliberate decision to use the cover of that historic crisis to engage in his armed offense is particularly reprehensible.”

When Chicago Police officers showed up to stop the looting, Green and the others fled in vehicles.

The police gave chase and the car Green was riding in became disabled.

Green took off running and tried to stash a bag containing the gun behind a broom and dustpan in an alley.

He then jumped a fence and tried to hide under the stairs of a home but was caught by police who found the bag with the gun in it.

Green had been convicted in state court of multiple felonies, including a firearm offense, and was not legally allowed to possess the gun.

He was also on parole for his most recent felony conviction at the time he committed his federal crime.

Last year, a jury convicted Green on a federal charge of illegal firearm possession.

U.S. District Judge Manish S. Shah just sentenced him to prison for five years and nine months.

According to DOJ:

“The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Jeffrey L. Matthews, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives; and David Brown, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department.

“Holding illegal firearm possessors accountable through federal prosecution is a centerpiece of Project Safe Neighborhoods, the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction strategy.

“In the Northern District of Illinois, U.S. Attorney Lausch and law enforcement partners have deployed the PSN program to attack a broad range of violent crime issues facing the district, particularly firearm offenses,” DOJ said.

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