Manaen Rave

Introduction

Manaen Rave, 27, of Sioux City, Iowa, is a carjacker and repeat felon who was sentenced on September 25, 2026 to 240 months in federal prison — twenty years — for a thirteen-day crime spree across two states in which he pistol-whipped one carjacking victim and stole two motor vehicles. United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand imposed the sentence in Sioux City after Rave pleaded guilty on June 1, 2026 to two counts of Interstate Transportation of Stolen Motor Vehicles and one count of Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition by a Felon. The spree’s violent centerpiece came on February 16, 2025, when Rave beat a woman in the head with a .22 revolver to take her car; the SWAT team’s extraction of Rave from behind a closet wall three weeks later ended it.

Background Information

Rave’s criminal history, summarized in the sentencing release, already included a conspiracy with intent to manufacture or deliver methamphetamine, felony failure to appear, assault on persons in certain occupations with use or display of a weapon, and second-degree theft of a motor vehicle — a record that made his possession of any firearm a federal felony independent of the spree itself. The investigation spanned agencies on both sides of the Missouri River: the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Department, the Sioux City Police Department, the Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, police and fire departments, the Dakota County, Nebraska Sheriff’s Department, the Iowa Department of Transportation, the ATF, the FBI, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Assistant United States Attorney Forde Fairchild prosecuted the case.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and sentenced.

The spree began on February 16, 2025, when Rave carjacked a motor vehicle by pistol-whipping his victim in the head with a .22 revolver — an attack that required the woman to receive treatment at a hospital. He drove the stolen car across the state line and ditched it near Homer, Nebraska, where it was abandoned. Nine days later, on or about February 27, 2025, Rave stole a second vehicle, leaving his victim standing in a gas station parking lot. On March 1, 2025, Sioux City officers located the second stolen vehicle in a neighborhood a block away from a residence Rave was known to frequent; inside the vehicle, officers found an empty firearm holster.

Rave refused commands to exit the nearby house, and officers obtained a search warrant. A SWAT team deployed and pulled Rave out from behind a wall in a bedroom closet — the release’s own description is that the team “extracted a cowering Rave from behind a closet wall” — and the keys to the stolen car were located in the same room. The plea on June 1, 2026 resolved the case: two counts of interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles, one for each vehicle taken in the February spree, and the felon-in-possession count arising from the firearms evidence. At sentencing on September 25, 2026, Judge Strand imposed 240 months’ imprisonment — twenty years — to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release, with no parole available in the federal system.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The documented reaction is the sentencing release’s own framing: a thirteen-day crime spree, a hospitalized carjacking victim, and a SWAT extraction. There is no statement from Rave or his attorney, no victim impact account, and no community response in the release. The consequences are severe and documented: twenty years in federal prison for a 27-year-old with an already extensive record, three years of supervised release after custody, and a federal conviction set covering both a violent carjacking and the firearms possession that underpinned it. The release does not state whether the hospital-treated carjacking victim has filed suit, whether restitution was ordered, or whether any state charges from the spree remain pending.

Current Status

Rave is being held in the custody of the United States Marshals Service until he can be transported to a federal prison to begin the 240-month term imposed on September 25, 2026. His case file number in the Northern District of Iowa is 25-4032. The release does not state the designated facility, whether he intends to appeal, or what conditions will govern the three-year supervised-release term that follows custody. The .22 revolver used in the February 16 carjacking was not recovered as far as the release records; the empty holster found in the stolen car and the keys found in his closet are the documented firearms evidence.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The twenty-year sentence is the longest term the spree could have produced short of a life count, and it converts Rave’s thirteen days of 2025 into two decades of custody spanning his late twenties to his late forties. The sentencing record ties him to each element of the spree in his own plea: the pistol-whipping that sent a woman to the hospital, the car ditched in Nebraska, the second victim left at a gas station, and the closet behind which he hid while a SWAT team waited with a warrant. The release describes nothing about his employment or family, and no restitution accompanies the sentence on its face. His criminal history — drugs, weapons, theft, failure to appear — now leads with a twenty-year federal term.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Iowa, “Sioux City Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Federal Prison For Stealing Cars at Gunpoint”, September 25, 2026 — source