Armed Carjacker Sentenced to More Than 23 Years in Federal Prison

U.S. Attorney’s Office
Northern District of Texas
12 January 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DALLAS — A Dallas man who admitted committing two armed carjackings in Dallas on two consecutive days in May 2015, was sentenced yesterday by Chief U.S. District Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn to a lengthy federal prison sentence, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.

Verod Woodard was sentenced to 283 months in federal prison. He pleaded guilty the day his trial was to begin in May 2016 in federal court in Dallas to one count of using, carrying and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

According to documents filed in his case, Woodard committed a carjacking at gunpoint in the parking lot of a Family Dollar store in Dallas on the afternoon of May 15, 2015. He took a 2006 Chrysler Sebring from its occupant by pointing a loaded .25 caliber Raven Arms handgun at her. The following day, Woodard brandished the same loaded .25 caliber Raven Arms handgun at a second victim at a gas station/convenience store, and he took the victim’s 2007 Ford F-250 pickup truck. Shortly after driving away from the gas station/convenience store, Woodard ran a red light, and a DART police officer observed that violation and made a traffic stop. After calling in the license plate number, officers discovered that the vehicle had recently been carjacked and Woodard was then arrested. A .25 caliber Raven Arms handgun, that matched the description given by the truck’s owner, was found in the cab of the pickup truck

The case was investigated by the FBI, the Dallas Police Department and the DART Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark Penley and Kate Pfeifle prosecuted the case.