Hunter
08/24/24
A Cedar Rapids man was sentenced this week for his role in a July 2023 Iowa City Ped Mall shots-fired incident.
The Gazette reports 19-year-old Lesean Hardy Jr previously pleaded in U.S. District Court to one count of possession of firearms by a drug user. He gave another person a stolen weapon that was fired at a “rival gang member” on July 9th last year when Iowa City police officers responded to a shots-fired report on the Pedestrian Mall.
Federal court documents determined that two rival Cedar Rapids gangs, identified as the Money Boys and the Blicka Gang, were involved. Surveillance videos reportedly showed Blicka Gang member Hardy, who had just turned 18, hand a gun to another individual who fired at a rival gang member.
No injuries were reported.
Later that month, a search warrant of Hardy’s residence reportedly turned up two firearms that had been previously reported stolen out of Cedar Rapids, two firearm magazines, boxes of ammunition, and over 57 grams of marijuana. A test of the shell casings from one of the firearms, a Taurus 9mm pistol, showed it was the one used in the Ped Mall shooting and another shots-fired incident in Cedar Rapids a month earlier where a resident was struck with gunfire multiple times.
Hardy could have been sentenced to over five years in prison. US District Chief Judge CJ Williams sentenced him to 57 months and three years of supervised release upon completion of his sentence.