Less than two weeks after his acquittal of murder in connection to the 2016 mass shooting in Wilkinsburg, Cheron Shelton is facing a new federal gun charge, records show.

Shelton, 33, of Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood has been indicted by a grand jury for being a felon allegedly possessing a gun, U.S. Attorney Scott W. Brady said. Brady declined to comment on the charge beyond a news release.

An attorney for Shelton could not immediately be reached.

The newly filed charge comes 11 days after Shelton’s acquittal on six counts of criminal homicide.

On Feb. 14, an Allegheny County jury found Shelton not guilty on all counts in connection to the deaths of five adults and an unborn child during a backyard cookout in Wilkinsburg in March 2016.

If convicted of the gun charge, Cheron Shelton could face a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.

The federal indictment accuses Shelton of possessing a Colt M4 .22-caliber rifle on March 12, 2016 — three days after the shooting on Franklin Avenue that claimed six lives and left three others wounded.

Police said they found the rifle, which turned up to be stolen, during a search of Shelton’s mother’s home in Homewood. They also found ammunition there of the same caliber that was found at the site of the Wilkinsburg shooting, police said. They say testing matched the head-stamps on the ammunition to bullet casings found at the crime scene.

Under federal law, anyone convicted of a felony punishable by more than a year in prison is prohibited from possessing or owning a gun.

Shelton was prohibited from doing so because of a June 2010 drug conviction for possession of a controlled substance with intent to manufacture or deliver.

Investigators say they never recovered the rifle used in the killings, but they claimed a letter Shelton sent from jail to his girlfriend’s father contained coded instructions on where to find the weapon and how to get rid of it. They said he mimed similar instructions to his father days later during a jail visit that police secretly recorded.

The prosecution’s theory was that Shelton, believing that Lamont Powell was involved in the 2013 murder of a close friend, attacked the party in an act of revenge.

Shelton was initially set to go to trial with a co-defendant, Robert Thomas, who faced the same charges as Shelton. Less than an hour before the trial began, a judge dismissed all charges against Thomas days after prosecutors decided not to call their key witness, whose credibility was called into question.

Prosecutors had alleged that Thomas fired from the alley behind the home with a handgun, driving those in the yard toward the back door. They claimed Shelton was waiting in a small walkway between the houses with an AK-47-style rifle and opened fire on the bottleneck at the backdoor.

Those killed in the March 9, 2016 attack included: Jerry Shelton, 35, Brittany Powell, 27, and Chanetta Powell, 25; their cousin, Tina Shelton, 37; family friend Shada Mahone, 26; and Chanetta Powell’s unborn son . Lamont Powell, John Ellis and Tonjia Cunningham were wounded in the attack.

None of those slain were related Cheron Shelton.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Douglas C. Maloney and Brendan T. Conway are prosecuting the newly filed gun charge case with help from police from Allegheny County, Wilkinsburg and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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