Tehama County Parolee Pleads Guilty to Making Sawed-Off Shotgun

SACRAMENTO, CA—United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that Joseph Michael Cadotte, 23, of Red Bluff, pleaded guilty today to making a sawed-off shotgun.

According to the plea agreement, law enforcement officers were looking for Cadotte because he had absconded from his California parole officer. On December 3, 2010, law enforcement from Shasta and Tehama Counties, along with special agents with the California Department of Corrections Special Services Unit, served a search warrant at Cadotte’s mother’s house in an effort to locate him. When his mother answered the front door, Cadotte ran out of the back door and was apprehended. In the house, officers found a loaded sawed-off shotgun and two partially full boxes of shotgun shells that belonged to Cadotte. In the garage, officers found the sawed-off portions of the shotgun barrel and butt. Cadotte later told the officers that he had been in possession of the sawed-off shotgun for two weeks.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Tehama County District Attorney’s Office, and the Redding Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Stegman is prosecuting the case.

Cadotte is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge John A. Mendez on July, 19, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. The maximum statutory penalty for a violation of making a sawed-off shotgun is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.