Man sentenced for carjacking Montgomery urgent care employee

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - A federal judge has sentenced a man for an armed carjacking in Montgomery that happened almost a year ago.

Steven Michael Wehr, 33, was sentenced to 184 months in federal prison, according to the Department of Justice. In addition, the judge ordered Wehr to serve five years on supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.

The crime happened on the morning of Feb. 8, 2022. According to the plea agreement and other court records, an employee of the Jackson Clinic urgent care center on Pine Street was in her car when Wehr held a gun against the driver’s side window and ordered her to open the door. She complied and tried to run away, but Wehr pushed her back into the car and drove off with her in the passenger seat.

Prosecutors say the victim managed to jump out of the moving car on Mulberry Street near the Interstate 85 overpass. This caused Wehr to drive off the road and strike a pillar supporting the overpass before continuing southbound. The victim did not sustain any major injuries.

Montgomery police later found the stolen vehicle abandoned in the area of McGehee Road and Hermitage Drive. Fingerprints found in the car were a positive match to Wehr. An arrest warrant was issued on Feb. 17, 2022, and he was taken into federal custody shortly thereafter.

Wehr pleaded guilty to carjacking and using a firearm to commit the crime in September 2022.

Wehr has a lengthy criminal history, including other carjackings. The judge in this case noted that at the time of his arrest in February, Wehr was on probation from previous state convictions for the same type of crime. Specifically, he was convicted in state court in 2016 for committing two carjackings on the same day. During the commission of those crimes, Wehr shot into both vehicles with a firearm, striking one of the victims in the back.

In that 2015 incident, he was convicted of second-degree assault, two counts of first-degree robbery and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied building or vehicle. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison, with most of that sentence suspended, and he served a split five-year sentence with five years of probation after pleading guilty to the assault charge. He was released on probation on Nov. 15, 2020.

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