OKC Motorcyclist Who Fled Police Gets 6 Years for Illegal Gun

A routine traffic stop near Southwest 61st Street and South May Avenue turned into a foot chase that ended with a 29-year-old Oklahoma City man sentenced to six years in federal prison. Trey Ward was riding a motorcycle when officers saw him commit multiple traffic violations, and when an officer tried to pull him over, Ward took off running. Police caught him shortly after, and when they searched him, they found a gun he was not legally allowed to have.

Ward's arrest happened on December 29, 2025, according to KFOR. Oklahoma County jail records reviewed by Recently Booked show Ward, then 28, was booked into the Oklahoma County Jail at 2:02 a.m. that morning on preliminary charges of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon and eluding a police officer, with bond set at $10,000. Those state-level bookings marked the start of a case that would ultimately land in federal court.

Nearly eight months later, on August 7, 2026, Ward was sentenced to 72 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, per the Department of Justice's report on the case. Because he was convicted in federal court, Ward will not be eligible for parole. Federal truth-in-sentencing rules require inmates to serve at least 85% of their imposed sentence before becoming eligible for supervised release, meaning Ward is expected to spend roughly five of his six years in actual federal custody.

Why This Case Went Federal Instead of State

Being a felon in possession of a firearm is illegal under both Oklahoma and federal law, but the two systems treat it very differently. Under Oklahoma Statute Title 21, Section 1283, the same conduct is a state felony punishable by just 1 to 10 years in prison, with the possibility of parole. Federal prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), by contrast, carries a maximum statutory penalty of 15 years, a cap raised from 10 years after Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in 2022, and no path to early release through parole.

That gap in exposure is not accidental. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Oklahoma uses Project Safe Neighborhoods grant funding to embed a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney directly within Oklahoma City to focus on prosecuting illegal firearm possession and violent crime, according to the Department of Justice. Under an initiative called Operation Shots Fired, the district works with Oklahoma City police and the ATF to identify gun cases for federal prosecution, in part by matching crime-scene ballistics through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, per the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Ward's Sentence Fits a Regional Pattern

Ward's 72-month term is far from an outlier in the Western District of Oklahoma. Chief U.S. District Judge Scott L. Palk sentenced 58-year-old Andrea Delawrence Jackson to 71 months in federal prison this summer for being a felon in possession of a firearm after he was arrested near an Oklahoma City convenience store where shots had been fired, the Department of Justice reported. Judge Palk also sentenced 19-year-old Ro'velt Daddy Price to 72 months after Price led police on a high-speed chase while unlawfully possessing machinegun conversion devices, having been stopped near Lyrewood Lane and Wilshire Boulevard before he tried to flee.

Other recent cases show federal penalties climbing higher when guns are tied to violence. Marree Kavon Currie, 43, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison after Oklahoma City police pulled him over during a routine seatbelt stop and ballistics linked his gun to a drive-by shooting that had occurred eight days earlier, according to the Department of Justice. Ward's case did not involve an active shooting, placing his sentence closer to the Jackson and Price benchmarks than to Currie's.

A Familiar Intersection for Local Police

The stretch of Southwest 61st Street and South May Avenue where Ward was stopped has drawn police attention before. Hoodline previously reported on a fatal hit-and-run at the same intersection in July, and the area continues to see regular traffic enforcement patrols by Oklahoma City police. Ward's arrest adds another entry to that intersection's record of run-ins with law enforcement, though the two incidents are otherwise unrelated.