An Effingham County man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in jail by a federal judge.

Kenneth Neal Radford, 51, of Bloomingdale, was sentenced Jan. 30 to 188 months by Chief U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. Radford previously had entered a guilty plea to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, armed career criminal, stemming from a Dec. 26, 2007, incident with Effingham County sheriff’s deputies.

The case was a result of an investigation conducted by the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. On Dec. 26, 2007, deputies responded to a house fire in Guyton. Witnesses told deputies they had seen Radford leaving the scene. Deputies later found Radford at his home with a loaded shotgun and several shells.

Radford previously had been convicted of three burglaries, an attempt to commit child molestation and an aggravated assault, qualifying him for prosecution as an armed career criminal under federal law. He will be required to serve five years of supervised release following completion of his federal sentence, according to U.S. Attorney Edmund A. Booth Jr.

“There is no parole in the federal system,” Booth said.

Radford is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service awaiting transfer to a federal prison to be determined by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. There also are arson and burglary charges in Effingham County pending against Radford.

Booth noted that this case was prosecuted federally as part of the district’s Project Ceasefire initiative, a program devoted to reducing gun violence by prosecuting individuals found in possession of firearms who cannot legally possess them, such as felons and drug dealers.