Jury Finds Pasco County Man Guilty of Carjacking

TAMPA, FL—U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announces that a federal jury yesterday found Jose Guadalupe Gutierrez (20, Dade City) guilty of two counts of carjacking and two counts of use of a firearm to commit a crime of violence. Gutierrez faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 13, 2011 before United States District Court Judge James Moody.

According to testimony presented at trial, Gutierrez carjacked a victim at gunpoint on January 16, 2011, in Pasco County, and another victim during the early morning hours of February 23, 2011, also in Pasco County.

Gutierrez was apprehended by Florida Highway Patrol several hours after the February 23, 2011 carjacking. The apprehension occurred after Gutierrez was spotted by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, while driving erratically on Interstate 4 in Osceola County, in the Ford Explorer that he had carjacked earlier that morning. The trooper took chase and pursued Gutierrez, who traveled at speeds of up to 110 m.p.h. for several miles to avoid apprehension. Gutierrez eventually lost control of the vehicle, veered off the road, rolled the vehicle several times, and was ejected from the vehicle.

This case was investigated by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Colleen Murphy Davis.

It is another case prosecuted as a part of the Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Neighborhoods” program—a nationwide, gun-violence reduction strategy led by ATF. United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill, along with Virginia O’Brien, Special Agent in Charge, ATF, is coordinating the Project Safe Neighborhoods effort here in the Middle District of Florida in cooperation with federal, state, and local law enforcement officials.