Federal Judge Sandy Mattice on Monday ordered Jermain Shepheard to serve 56 months in federal prison in a case in which officers found bullets in his pocket during a domestic assault call.
The sentencing range was 51-63 months.
Last April 26, Shepheard's girlfriend called police saying that Shepeard beat her up and locked her out of the house. Police found the woman outside with scratches on her face and Shepheard inside under a bed.
He said Monday that he spotted the bullets when he crawled under the bed and decided to remove them so she would not get into trouble.
He said they belonged to her ex-boyfriend.
Shepheard said, "I was trying to prevent her from getting the backlash, and I got the backlash."
He said the arrest happened on his birthday.
Judge Mattice noted that Shepheard earlier served time for a 2001 bank robbery and then had his supervised release revoked twice.
Shepheard said he regrets that he did the burglary, saying it wasn't worth the small amount of money. He said, "I would have been better off working at a place like McDonald's and earning the money."
He said, "I'm missing out on a lot of stuff. While I was in jail on this arrest, my father died."