A 27-year-old Anchorage man nicknamed "G" received a more than three-year prison sentence Thursday for threatening a federal law enforcement officer with a sawed-off shotgun, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Alaska.
Leigaga Selau Amituanai was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison on a single count of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon, prosecutors said.
Court documents filed in the case say a deputy U.S. marshal was on duty conducting surveillance in an unmarked vehicle with tinted windows, parked in the lot of a business near Mountain View Drive and North Park Street on the morning of Feb. 11, 2016.
Amituanai and co-defendant Sulu Faamolemole, aka "Chase," pulled into the parking lot driving a stolen pickup, prosecutors said. They spotted the marshal in the vehicle, then slowly approached it, "gesturing aggressively" at the officer, prosecutors said.
"When the pickup truck crossed directly in front of the deputy U.S. marshal's vehicle, Amituanai pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and pointed it at the deputy to intimidate him, all while maintaining eye contact with the deputy," prosecutors said.
Responding Anchorage police and the marshal tried to pull over the stolen truck shortly after the gun threat, and the defendants drove down an embankment onto a Glenn Highway exit ramp. A short police chase down Bragaw Street followed but the men were ultimately arrested.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason found that Amituanai thought the person in the unmarked vehicle was likely some kind of law enforcement officer, making his crime all the more serious.
Faamolemole, the co-defendant, is set to be sentenced on July 10.