Shawn Cole Camu
Introduction
Shawn Cole Camu, a 38-year-old from Alamogordo, New Mexico, was sentenced in a federal court in El Paso to 180 months in prison — fifteen years — for stealing and transporting firearms. Camu, a convicted felon with seven prior felony convictions in Colorado and New Mexico, stole two firearms from a Federal Firearms Licensee located in El Paso on January 9, transported them to his home in Alamogordo, and intended to sell them for drug money. He was arrested the next day, pleaded guilty to all three counts against him in August, and on November 4 U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone imposed the statutory maximum for each charge.
Background Information
Camu’s criminal history is the case’s fixed context: seven prior felony convictions in Colorado and New Mexico, including residential burglary, armed burglary, robbery, and assault. That record made him a prohibited person under federal firearms law before the January theft ever happened, and it is why the two stolen firearms generated three separate federal counts — theft of a firearm from a federal firearm licensee, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and transportation of a stolen firearm — rather than one. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the El Paso Police Department, and the Alamogordo Police Department.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Pleaded guilty and sentenced. Shawn Cole Camu admitted stealing two firearms from an El Paso gun dealer and hauling them to New Mexico to sell for drug money, pleading guilty to all three counts and drawing the statutory maximum: 180 months.
The theft itself took one day. On January 9, Camu stole two firearms from a Federal Firearms Licensee — a licensed gun dealer — located in El Paso, then transported the stolen firearms across the state line to his home in Alamogordo, where he intended to sell them for drug money. He was arrested on January 10, the day after the theft. A federal grand jury indicted him in February on the three counts the conduct produced, and on August 11 he pleaded guilty to all of them: theft of a firearm from a federal firearm licensee, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and transportation of a stolen firearm.
On Wednesday, November 4, Judge Kathleen Cardone sentenced Camu to the statutory maximum for each charge — 180 months in total, the fifteen years the announcement’s headline carries. The sentence reflects the stacking of Camu’s history onto his crime: a seven-time felon who stole from a licensed dealer and moved the guns interstate drew the maximum the counts allowed, with the announcement recording no departures and no additional terms. U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons for the Western District of Texas announced the sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Wisniewski prosecuted the case.
The arrest-to-sentence arc ran under a year: January 9 theft, January 10 arrest, February indictment, August 11 plea, November 4 sentencing. At every stage the counts tracked the same two firearms and the same interstate trip from an El Paso dealer’s inventory to an Alamogordo residence.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The announcement came from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, with the ATF and the El Paso and Alamogordo police departments named as the investigating agencies. The documented consequences are the 180-month sentence, the three convictions admitted by plea, and the statutory-maximum posture Judge Cardone applied to each count. The release preserves the motive as Camu’s admitted intent — selling the stolen firearms for drug money — rather than speculating beyond it.
For the licensed dealer, the case documents the federal response to thefts from FFL inventories: the theft-of-a-firearm-from-a-licensee count exists precisely for the January 9 conduct, and the interstate transportation count captured the New Mexico leg of the trip. The three-agency investigation — federal, El Paso, and Alamogordo — matched the crime’s two-state footprint.
Current Status
Camu, 38, is beginning a 180-month federal prison term imposed by Judge Kathleen Cardone in the Western District of Texas. The release documents no appeal and no pending state counts. His record now carries the seven prior Colorado and New Mexico felonies plus three federal convictions admitted by plea — dealer theft, prohibited possession, and interstate transportation of stolen firearms — all anchored to a two-day arc in January that ran from an El Paso gun dealer’s inventory to an Alamogordo bedroom. The sentence runs to roughly age 53.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Camu’s file is a study in how prior records compound: the seven burglaries, robberies, and assaults already on his Colorado and New Mexico records turned a two-gun theft into a three-count federal case with statutory-maximum exposure, and his August plea surrendered the argument before sentencing. The fifteen-year term imposed November 4 takes a 38-year-old past his fifty-third birthday. For the El Paso gun dealer, the case closes with the ATF-led recovery path documented; for Camu, the January 9 decision to steal firearms for drug money produced the longest sentence on his record — fifteen years, admitted in full.
Sources
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, “New Mexico Felon Sentenced to Federal Prison for Stealing Firearms in El Paso,” November 2026. source