Local prosecutors couldn’t do it. A local judge couldn’t do it.

But Uncle Sam has found a way to seek a longer prison sentence for Jason A. Tremble, the Topeka man who injured 11 people on Massachusetts Street last fall by ricocheting bullets off the pavement and into a crowd of bar-goers.

U.S. Atty. Eric Melgren’s office announced Friday that Tremble, 22, faces up to 10 years in prison after being indicted in U.S. District Court for illegally possessing a firearm during the Oct. 5, 2003, shooting incident.

A Melgren spokesman said the feds agreed to take the case at the request of local police and prosecutors who thought the sentence Tremble received in Douglas County District Court wasn’t long enough.

For a combination of reasons — some of which are being argued in a case before the Kansas Supreme Court — Tremble received only 40 months in prison despite a lengthy criminal history.

“Given what happened on the streets in Lawrence, I think this is an individual who should be serving more time than the sentence he received in the district court here,” Douglas County Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney said.

Tremble entered a guilty plea last Oct. 31 to 11 counts of aggravated battery and two related charges. It came as prosecutors in Kenney’s office were about to present evidence that some of the victims suffered serious injuries that could have supported higher-level charges on some counts.

But Judge Paula B. Martin said she was duty-bound to accept the plea and wouldn’t let prosecutors change the charges. Kenney’s office appealed Martin’s refusal to allow new charges and argued it earlier this week before the Kansas Supreme Court.

At Tremble’s sentencing, Martin called his actions egregious and said she wanted to string all of his counts back-to-back. But she couldn’t because of a quirk in state sentencing laws.

In cases with multiple counts, the law says, the overall sentence can’t be more than double the sentence for the primary charge.

If he’d been convicted of the higher-level charges prosecutors wanted to file, Tremble would have been facing about 10 years in prison.

Tremble was forbidden from having a gun under federal law because of a prior conviction in Shawnee County for felony obstruction of justice and cocaine possession, officials said. He was on probation at the time of the shooting.

“Federal laws are very strict now about firearms,” said Jim Cross, a Melgren spokesman. “In cases where the state district court might charge a fellow with robbing a QuikTrip, we might come in later with a federal charge that he was using a gun.”

6News video: Shooter faces federal charges (10-15-04) Prosecution questioned in fall ’03 shooting (10-13-04) Justices to review shooter’s plea (10-03-04) 3-year shooting sentence criticized (12-19-04) 6News video: Jason Tremble sentenced for bar shooting (12-19-04) Mass. St. shooter pleads guilty (11-1-03) 6News video: Gunman pleads guilty Suspect in shooting was on probation (10-8-03) 6News video: Shooting suspect was on probation Suspect charged in shooting (10-7-03) 6News video: Shooting suspect charged with aggravated battery (10-7-03) Shooting outside bar injures 11 (10-6-03)