Source: Office of United States Attorneys
A man was sentenced on January 31, 2025, to 24 months imprisonment for contempt of court.
Joel Perea-Duenas, age 24, from Sioux City, Iowa, received the prison term after a July 30, 2024, guilty plea to contempt of court.
In the evening hours of June 23, 2020, Perea-Duenas was asked to serve as the getaway driver for a drive-by shooting. He agreed, put on dark clothing, and joined three armed men in a waiting car. The attackers drove to the home of their intended victim, but seeing law enforcement in the area, aborted their attack. Perea-Duenas suggested a secondary target, drove to that new target and identified it to his conspirators. It was a home, occupied by seven people including children. One of the gunmen repeatedly fired upon the home hitting the house at least eight times. Perea-Duenas was later caught by police and admitted he knew about the intended shooting before agreeing to drive, admitted knowing there were people, including children, in the targeted home, and he wanted the shooting to occur to in retaliation against a resident of the home and his family. On November 19, 2021, Perea-Duenas pled guilty to two counts of being a drug user in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to 4 years in federal prison.
On October 27, 2022, defendant was called as a witness at the federal sentencing of an accomplice. He was sworn by the district court judge. When he was questioned under oath, however, he refused to testify because he did not want to testify. The district court advised him that he did not have a lawful right to refuse to answer the questions. Nonetheless, Perera-Duenas persisted in his refusal to testify. The district court continued the sentencing, in part, to give Perea-Duenas time to reconsider his refusal of the district court’s lawful order. The sentencing resumed on December 8, 2022. Perera-Duenas again, communicated his refusal to testify. He was sent back to federal prison to complete his federal sentence for the firearms charge.
On October 19, 2023, while he was still in federal prison, he was charged with contempt of court. On November 20, 2023, he was released from federal prison on the gun charges, he was re-arrested and haled back into federal court to answer for his criminal contempt. On July 30, 2024, he plead guilty. He was sentenced on January 31, 2025, in Sioux City by United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand to 24 months’ imprisonment. He must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
Judge Strand indicated in sentencing Perea-Duenas that this was the only time in his career as a jurist that he had encountered a refusal to testify of this nature and that the crime had to be sanctioned stiffly to ensure others do not follow suit.
United States Attorney Timothy T. Duax said: “refusals to testify, like refusals of court orders generally, strike at the very heart of the American justice system and the rule of law. As a result, those who disobey lawfully issued court orders risk prosecution and incarceration.”
Perea-Duenas is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.
The case was investigated by the Sioux City Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Forde Fairchild.
Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
The case file number is 23-4026/20-4071.
Follow us on X @USAO_NDIA.