Derontrez Coleman, 34, was sentenced to 76 to 104 months in North Carolina state prison on Nov. 2, 2026, after pleading guilty to a firearm and habitual felon charge from a 2024 Asheville traffic stop, prosecutors said.
The charges trace to a Dec. 17, 2024, stop near Haywood Road in Asheville, where police reported finding Coleman and a second man drinking tequila, using drugs and carrying two handguns, according to the Buncombe County District Attorney's Office and ABC affiliate WLOS.
What the December 2024 traffic stop turned up
Asheville police officers patrolling near Haywood Road on Dec. 17, 2024, reported seeing two men in a vehicle drinking tequila, using drugs and carrying firearms, according to the Buncombe County District Attorney's Office account relayed by WLOS. Officers stopped the car after it reportedly traveled the wrong way down Granada Street and wove between lanes, a detail reported by CBS affiliate WSPA. A search of the vehicle turned up two handguns, and officers arrested Coleman along with a co-defendant, the district attorney's office said in a release posted the day after the plea.
The charge, the plea and the sentence
Coleman pleaded guilty on Nov. 2, 2026, before Superior Court Judge Alan Z. Thornburg to possession of a firearm by a felon, a class G felony, and to attaining habitual felon status, a class C felony, the district attorney's office said. Thornburg sentenced Coleman to serve 76 to 104 months in state prison as a class C felon at prior record level V. North Carolina's habitual felon law does not stand as its own crime. It is a sentencing enhancement: a defendant who has already accumulated three qualifying prior felony convictions is sentenced at a higher felony class than the new underlying charge would otherwise carry, once the state proves habitual felon status, the district attorney's office said.
Coleman's record and what the filings do not say
Prosecutors said Coleman's prior record includes felony convictions for habitual breaking and entering, common law robbery and larceny of a motor vehicle, convictions that barred him from legally possessing a firearm under both state and federal law, Fox Carolina reported. The district attorney's office has not named the co-defendant arrested alongside Coleman at the scene, and public statements from the office and from the three television stations that covered the sentencing do not specify what drug or drugs officers said were in use at the stop, beyond describing the discovery of tequila, drugs and two handguns. No attorney for Coleman has been quoted on the record in the coverage reviewed, and the district attorney's office release does not indicate whether Coleman intends to appeal.