An Atlanta man who helped steal a car and then fired several shots at an FBI agent who was pursuing him has been sentenced to more than 15 years in federal prison, the Justice Department said Friday.
Keith Pharms, 26, was found guilty by a federal jury earlier this year of multiple charges, including assaulting a federal officer, according to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Ryan Buchanan. Pharms will spend 15 years behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal prison system.
According to Buchanan, Pharms had been released from state prison just eight days before he stole a car in Atlanta and shot at the FBI agent.
The incident took place Feb. 24, 2022, Buchanan said. Pharms used his mother’s vehicle, a Chevrolet SS, in a plot to steal a car with two other men, Jokava Harris and an unnamed 18-year-old. Both pleaded guilty after their arrests.
The teenager drove Pharms’ mother’s car to a parking garage in Midtown Atlanta, where Harris used a key programmer to steal a Dodge Charger. The teen, with Pharms as an armed passenger, then followed Harris as he drove off in the Charger.
An FBI task force officer was surveilling the area due to the number of recent car thefts and began to follow the SS and the Charger after he noticed they were traveling in tandem, Buchanan said. As the officer followed, Pharms spotted him and fired multiple shots at his patrol car. The officer kept following the two cars until they stopped at a curve in the road and ambushed him, according to the DA. More gunshots were fired at the federal agent, hitting his car and nearly hitting him in the head.
The gambit was temporarily successful and the three men were able to flee. Atlanta police later found the SS and Charger abandoned.
Pharms and Harris were swept up in a raid about a month later that netted two other arrests and led officers to confiscate several guns, ammunition, key fobs to 14 stolen cars and equipment used in auto thefts, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported at the time.
Pharms was detained by the U.S. Marshals Service before his federal trial and was found with multiple pieces of contraband, including a cellphone and a handcuff key, which led detention officers to worry he was planning an escape, Buchanan said. While he was detained, Pharms shared a social media post with the name of a witness in his case, a partial copy of the report the witness provided to law enforcement and a picture of a rat.
In addition to being convicted of assaulting a federal officer, Pharms was found guilty of using a firearm during a crime of violence, possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a contraband cellphone and possession of an escape tool.
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