A repeat offender was sentenced to nearly 13 years in federal prison Friday for possessing a firearm while a convicted felon.
Keith Morgan Block, 52, aka "Shy Town," is serving a 20-year term in the Arkansas Department of Correction for a drug offense he was convicted of in Miller County in October 2017. Block appeared Friday for sentencing before U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey with Texarkana lawyer Matthew Golden.
Hickey sentenced Block to 155 months in federal prison for possessing a Rohm RG 10, .22-caliber revolver April 30, 2016. Assistant U.S. Attorney Graham Jones filed a sentencing memorandum in the case which argues for a lengthy term.
"The pre-sentence report indicates that, since Aug. 42, 1992, the defendant has spent less than five years outside of prison. He seems to have busied himself during those scant years of freedom by breaking the law," the memorandum states.
Jones notes that Block served was released in 2004 from a Texas prison after serving more than 11 years and was re-arrested 56 days later while in possession of a firearm.
"Over the next roughly two years, before being returned to prison in March 2006 on that felon in possession charge, the defendant managed to assault a woman twice, possess controlled substances, engage in disorderly conduct, resist arrest, fail to appear in court and repeatedly violate a protective order," the memorandum states.
Block was released from prison approximately nine years later and was arrested for felony drug possession fewer than seven months later, according to the memorandum.
"And of course, defendant was again caught with a gun in that case," the memorandum states. "Such a history makes it evident that one of the defendant's defining personal characteristics is a profound willingness to break the law."