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A federal jury convicted a Greenbelt felon of gun possession Thursday.

Derrick Wenzell Simmons, 36, was charged with possession of a firearm, according to a news release from the office of Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland.

Members of the FBI and the Laurel City Police Department found the firearm during a search of Simmons' home on Dec. 4, 2008, based on information from an ongoing investigation.

Law enforcement recovered a loaded Sig Sauer .40-caliber semiautomatic firearm hidden in a blue plastic container in the master bedroom closet. The FBI was able to obtain DNA from the firearm, which, along with other evidence, connected Simmons to the gun, according to the news release.

Simmons has a criminal arrest history starting in 1995, when he was convicted in Prince George's County Circuit Court of robbery with a deadly weapon, says Vickie Leduc, a Department of Justice spokeswoman. In 2004, Simmons had a felon-in-possession-of-firearms conviction in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and was sentenced to 57 months in jail. Due to these charges, Simmons was prohibited from possessing a firearm.

An attorney for Simmons could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.

Simmons faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm. His sentencing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 6.

E-mail Jordan Attebury at jattebury@gazette.net.