A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a 20-year prison sentence for an Orlando man involved in a fatal 2022 parking lot shootout, ruling that drug dealers cannot claim self-defense to avoid harsher sentencing guidelines when violence breaks out on rival turf.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed the sentence of Cristian Ponce, who had pleaded guilty to four drug and firearm charges in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
The appeal centered on how the trial court calculated Ponce’s sentence. Under federal sentencing guidelines, the district court applied a “murder cross-reference” enhancement after determining that the November 2, 2022, shootout qualified as second-degree murder under federal law…