Da’Tellyon Dawon Nix

Introduction

Da’Tellyon Dawon Nix, a 19-year-old from Waterloo, Iowa, was sentenced on November 3, 2026, to more than five years in federal prison — 70 months — for possessing a stolen firearm as a convicted felon. Nix received the term from United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand in Cedar Rapids after a June 24, 2026, guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a felon. The arrest that produced the case came on January 28, 2026, when officers followed Nix from a Chuck E. Cheese in Cedar Falls, pulled over the car he was riding in, and — after he tried to flee and was tased — heard him admit there was a firearm in his waistband.

Background Information

Nix’s prior record is what made the January waistband a federal case: he was previously convicted of a felony crime of violence — intimidation with a dangerous weapon, an offense the sentencing announcement describes as involving him firing a gun at multiple people. He was also already wanted: at the time of the January 2026 encounter, a valid warrant was out for Nix’s arrest for probation violations. The firearm he was carrying had previously been stolen from a federal firearms licensee, adding the stolen-gun fact to the possession count.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Pleaded guilty and sentenced. Da’Tellyon Dawon Nix admitted possessing a stolen firearm as a felon after officers tased him mid-flight from a traffic stop and he admitted the gun in his waistband, drawing a 70-month federal sentence.

The January 28, 2026 encounter is the case’s documented sequence. Law enforcement officers had information that Nix was in possession of a gun, and a valid warrant was outstanding for his arrest on probation violations. Officers followed Nix as he left a Chuck E. Cheese in Cedar Falls and subsequently pulled over the car he was in. Nix attempted to flee and was ultimately tased by an officer, at which point he admitted that there was a firearm in his waistband. The firearm was confirmed to have been previously stolen from a federal firearms licensee — the fact that gave the possession count its stolen-gun anchor.

On June 24, 2026, Nix pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon, adopting the encounter’s facts as his plea record. On November 3, Judge Strand sentenced him in Cedar Rapids to 70 months’ imprisonment — five years and ten months — to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system, so the custody term runs as imposed. The sentencing information came from the plea and sentencing hearings, per the announcement.

The case is part of Operation Take Back America, the Department of Justice’s nationwide initiative marshalling department resources against violent crime, and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kyndra Lundquist. The investigation was run by a federal task force composed of the Waterloo Police Department, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, assisted by the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office and the Cedar Falls Police Department.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The announcement presents the case as the task-force model working: five agencies converging on a 19-year-old already on probation for violent-offense conduct, with the January stop converting a probation warrant into a federal conviction. The documented consequences are the 70-month sentence, the three-year supervised release term, and the felon-in-possession conviction admitted by plea. Nix is being held in United States Marshals’ custody until he can be transported to a federal prison, the release notes, with the case docketed in the Northern District of Iowa as number 26-CR-2009.

The sentence’s structure is the record’s measurement of Nix’s age and history: nearly six years for a first federal conviction, but a conviction resting on a prior violent felony that made any firearm possession a federal offense. The stolen-firearms-licensee fact — the gun’s path from a licensed dealer’s inventory to a 19-year-old’s waistband — is the detail the announcement preserves.

Current Status

Nix, 19, is in U.S. Marshals’ custody pending transport to a federal prison, where he will serve 70 months followed by three years of supervised release. The release documents no appeal. His supervision, when it begins around age 25, will run under the same Northern District of Iowa court that imposed it, with re-imprisonment available for violations — the structure his prior probation-violation warrant suggests he will be tested under. The underlying state probation matters remain his alongside the federal term, to the extent documented.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Nix’s federal record now begins at 19 with a firearms conviction admitted on the facts of a taser-ended flight from a Cedar Falls traffic stop. The arc the announcement documents — a violent-felony conviction involving firing a gun at multiple people, a probation-violation warrant, a gun stolen from a licensed dealer in his waistband — is the file of an 18-month descent from state probation to federal custody. The 70-month term runs to roughly age 24, with supervision following to 27. For Waterloo, the case is the task-force docket’s local entry: five agencies, one stolen firearm, and a sentencing announcement that documents the whole chain in two paragraphs.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Iowa, “Waterloo Man to Federal Prison for Possessing Stolen Firearm,” November 2026. source