Kenneth Twyman federal drug, gun charges lead to 10-year sentence

A three-time "Wisconsin’s Most Wanted" fugitive, already serving decades of state time for a homicide case, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison last week on drug and weapons-related charges.

Kenneth Twyman, 26, was sentenced Jan. 26 in federal court after pleading guilty in October 2023 to: dealing cocaine, marijuana and heroin in September 2018 while armed with a machine gun; possessing marijuana in January 2022; and making a false statement to a firearms dealer in March 2022.

Court records show federal prosecutors requested a 10-year prison sentence – concurrent on all charges – to be served at the same time as his 35 year prison sentence in a state homicide case and to dismiss the federal indictment.

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Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph agreed, dismissing the indictment. She sentenced Twyman to 10 years in prison on drug and machine gun charges, and five years in prison on the marijuana charge, all to run concurrent to each other and to the state prison sentence.

Twyman filed an appeal in the state case earlier this month.

Milwaukee Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse

Twyman was found guilty by a jury in March 2023 of first-degree reckless homicide and possession of a firearm by an adjudicated delinquent of a felony. When he took the stand in his own defense in his trial, it was the first time Twyman admitted to firing the shots that killed 24-year-old Tayvon Luckett in April 2022. He told the jury he did it in self-defense.

"I fired until he was down, so I could run to the vehicle," Twyman said.

The deadly shooting near Fond du Lac and Locust in Milwaukee happened outside a gas station convenience store.

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Twyman said he still owed Luckett $150 for three grams of cocaine from a year-and-a-half earlier. Outside the convenience store, Twyman said he tried to shake hands with Luckett – but Luckett refused. He said he saw a gun in Luckett's left hand, pointed at the ground, and testified that Luckett told him: "This is how people die."

Twyman ran to a car that drove him away from the scene.

U.S. Marshals arrested Twyman three months later in Oak Creek.

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