Dakota Thorstenson

Introduction

Dakota Thorstenson, a 30-year-old man from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has been sentenced to two years and six months in federal prison for possessing a pistol while prohibited from having one. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota, U.S. District Judge Karen E. Schreier imposed the sentence on November 2, 2026, along with three years of supervised release and a $100 special assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Thorstenson’s possession came to light in the most ordinary way possible: he was the driver in two automobile accidents in rapid succession in southern Sioux Falls, was taken into custody, and was searched — and the search found a pistol on him, despite felony convictions that made his possession of any firearm a federal crime. He was immediately remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Background Information

Federal law bars anyone convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm, and prosecutors in the District of South Dakota treat repeat prohibited-possession as one of the violent-crime priorities under Project Safe Neighborhoods. Thorstenson’s prohibiting record stacked three state convictions: distribution or possession with intent to distribute marijuana from 2015 in Brookings County, simple assault on a law enforcement officer from 2015 in Brookings County, and simple assault, third or subsequent offense, from 2022 in Minnehaha County. A federal grand jury indicted him for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person in May 2026; he pleaded guilty on August 11, 2026. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, with Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan McFall prosecuting.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty and sentenced. Thorstenson admitted the possession in his August 2026 plea and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison on November 2, 2026.

In April of this year, Thorstenson was driving a vehicle involved in two automobile accidents in rapid succession in southern Sioux Falls. The double crash brought local law enforcement, and his involvement in the accidents brought him into custody. A search of his person turned up a pistol — the single fact that turned a bad night of driving into a federal indictment three presumptions deep: a prohibited possessor, carrying a loaded handgun on his body, behind the wheel.

The indictment followed in May 2026 for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. Thorstenson pleaded guilty on August 11, 2026, admitting the possession, and Judge Schreier sentenced him on November 2, 2026 to two years and six months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. The announcement does not describe the pistol’s origin, serial history, or whether it was reported stolen — only that it was found on his person during the custodial search.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The sentencing was announced by United States Attorney Ron Parsons, whose office has made prohibited-possession prosecutions a visible part of its violent-crime docket. No statement from Thorstenson or his attorney appears in the announcement. The consequences are now fixed: 30 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release afterward, the $100 special assessment, and immediate remand into Marshals Service custody at the sentencing hearing. For a defendant whose criminal history already spans marijuana distribution, assaulting a police officer, and repeat simple assault, the federal sentence adds a gun-count conviction to a record that already explained why he could never lawfully carry one.

Current Status

Thorstenson is in federal custody serving his two-and-a-half-year sentence, having been remanded to the U.S. Marshals Service immediately at sentencing. The conviction is final at the district-court level: guilty plea entered August 11, 2026, sentence imposed November 2, 2026 by Judge Karen E. Schreier. His supervised-release term will begin after custody, and any further exposure would come only from a violation of that term or a new offense. The pistol itself remains an evidentiary footnote — found on him, charged, and adjudicated — with no separate state proceeding announced.

Impact on Their Career/Life

At 30, Thorstenson’s record now runs from a 2015 drug-dealing conviction through a 2022 repeat-assault conviction to a 2026 federal gun sentence — each layer added while the prior ones already prohibited him from carrying. The two-car-crash arrest shows how quickly a prohibited possessor’s afternoon can become a federal case: no warrant operation, no sting, just a fender-bender and a mandatory search. He will spend the first years of his thirties in federal prison and the following three under supervised release, during which any new firearm contact would carry enhanced exposure as a repeat prohibited possessor.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of South Dakota, “Sioux Falls Man Sentenced to 2 years in Federal Prison for Possession of a Firearm by a Prohibited Person,” November 2, 2026. source