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A man who was on parole when he was arrested and charged in a pair of separate cases involving drugs and guns is going to prison.

Tyrell Allen Weigel, 22, was sentenced Thursday in Mower County District Court to 92 months, or just over seven and a half years, in prison for felony first degree drug sales in one case, and he was sentenced to 60 months (five years) for felony violent felon in possession of a firearm in the second.

Also in that second case he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, however, he was also given credit for 90 days in jail. For the two felony sentences he was given credit for 181 days served.

Between the two cases, four other charges were dismissed.

Weigel, who had been out on parole since March 20, 2023, was found in possession of a Springfield Armory 9mm handgun with a loaded magazine and a shotgun with a slug round in the loading tube.

According to court records, police arrested Weigel at the Minnesota Department of Corrections office in Austin on a warrant on March 8 of this year while sitting in his parked Buick, the same car witnessed by detectives in the second case.  

Weigel was observed by a Mower County Sheriff’s Office deputy to have bloodshot eyes, twitching hands, dilated pupils and droopy eyelids. When asked to do field sobriety tests, Weigel failed a majority of them.

It was after the vehicle was towed to the impound lot when the weapons were discovered. During questioning, Weigel denied the weapons were his and said that a friend had removed the handgun from a safe at the residence Weigel and his friend were at.  

He claimed he took the gun so as not to incriminate his friend with the intention of bringing it back, and that the owner was probably not aware that the gun was missing, something that was confirmed when the owner was questioned.  

In the second case, court documents state that Weigel was witnessed selling methamphetamine to confidential information on two separate occasions. Once on Dec. 20, 2023 and the second time on Jan. 24.  Between the two alleged purchases, the CRI purchased a total of 47.6 grams of methamphetamines.

Weigel will serve his sentence at the St. Cloud facility and both sentences are to run concurrently.