Evansville man sentenced to federal prison on gun charges related to shooting

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) - An Evansville man was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison Tuesday for a firearms offense related the shooting of two people.

According to court documents, on June 13, 2020, the Evansville Police Department responded to the intersection of U.S. 41 and Covert Avenue on a report of a car crash and multiple gunshots being fired.

When officers arrived, they found an overturned vehicle, as well as two victims – an unconscious man and a conscious juvenile girl – who had gunshot wounds.

The girl told law enforcement that Paje Capone Diaz, 24, of Evansville, had opened fire on them from the front passenger seat of another vehicle.

During their investigation, officers say they found spent rounds of Nosler 10mm ammunition at the scene of the shooting.

Officers say they also found a half-empty box of Nosler 10mm ammunition inside a home that Diaz visited the night of and morning after the shooting.

They say they found the receipt for the ammunition inside a vehicle associated Diaz, and law enforcement obtained surveillance video footage of him buying that ammunition two days before the shooting.

Diaz was previously convicted of a firearms-related felony in Vanderburgh County, and as a result, was legally prohibited from possessing firearms or ammunition.

As part of the sentence, Judge Young ordered that the defendant be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for three years following his release from federal prison.

Diaz faced two local charges of attempted murder in the case. According to court records, the charges were dismissed back in March.