United States of America v. Teslauch K. Gatkuoth

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2536
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Teslauch K. Gatkuoth
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the District of Nebraska - Omaha
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Submitted: February 12, 2026
Filed: June 8, 2026
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Before LOKEN, SMITH, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
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STRAS, Circuit Judge.
Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. Here, a routine traffic stop led
to a foot chase that ended inside a stranger’s house, where officers arrested Teslauch
Gatkuoth and discovered a pistol under some laundry in a child’s bedroom.
Although he claims he was an overnight guest and that the gun did not belong to
him, the evidence suggests otherwise.

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I.
A traffic stop turned into something more when officers tried to pull over a
silver Lexus driven by Gatkuoth that had rolled through a stop sign. Rather than
slowing down, he drove through a second one. Eventually, he stopped, jumped out,
and made a run for it while clutching his waistband.
When Gatkuoth reached a nearby home, he ran directly into a bedroom. After
a brief standoff, he finally surrendered. As he did, an officer heard a child’s voice
inside. Much to the officer’s surprise, the 8-year-old child said, “[h]e put some stuff
in my room, bro, I don’t know what.” Turns out the “stuff” included a Taurus G3
9mm handgun found underneath some clothes in a laundry hamper.
While the incident was unfolding, another resident, Riek Kuany, was calmly
standing on the front porch. At first, he denied knowing Gatkuoth. The answer
changed, however, during the suppression hearing on the gun. By then, Kuany was
not only willing to swear he knew Gatkuoth, but that he had an open invitation to
stay at the house. He was, in other words, a regular overnight guest.
For a few reasons, the district court1 found his testimony “less than
convincing.” One was that no one else living at the house knew Gatkuoth despite
his “purported multitude of stays at the residence.” Another was Kuany’s lack of
information about him, even though they had allegedly known each other for years
and were members of the same gang. And finally, some of his answers to basic
questions seemed “rehearsed,” while he “struggled” with others. After the district
court denied the motion to suppress, a jury found Gatkuoth guilty of illegally
possessing the firearm. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).
1 The Honorable Brian C. Buescher, United States District Judge for the
District of Nebraska.

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II.
In his view, the case should never have made it to a jury because the officers
needed a warrant to search the child’s bedroom. “Standing” to object depended on
whether Gatkuoth had “a legitimate expectation of privacy” in the place searched.
United States v. Kuenstler, 325 F.3d 1015, 1020 (8th Cir. 2003); see United States v.
Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 86 (1980) (explaining that the defendant has the burden to
prove Fourth Amendment standing). The district court ruled that he had none
because he was a stranger to the house, not even qualifying as an overnight guest.
See Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 98 (1990) (discussing overnight guests).
Even if we assume that an overnight guest would have had a legitimate
expectation of privacy in the child’s bedroom—hardly a sure bet—the district court
did not clearly err in finding that he never became one. See United States v. Wiest,
596 F.3d 906, 909 (8th Cir. 2010) (applying clear-error review to a factual finding
like this one). The fate of the suppression motion rested with Kuany, but his
testimony presented multiple problems, not the least of which was that he
contradicted his day-of-the-chase statement about not knowing Gatkuoth. See
Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 65 (1988) (“Inconsistent testimony . . .
seriously impairs and potentially destroys [a witness’s] credibility.” (citation
omitted)). Add a prior conviction for filing a false police report and his unfamiliarity
with someone whom he claimed was a longtime friend, and Kuany gave the court
little reason to believe him. These shortcomings sunk Gatkuoth’s chance at Fourth
Amendment standing. See United States v. Mosley, 878 F.3d 246, 255 (8th Cir. 2017)
(reviewing the ultimate determination on Fourth Amendment standing de novo).
III.
With the gun admissible at trial, the government still had to connect it to him.
At its core, the issue is whether there was insufficient evidence that Gatkuoth, instead
of the child or someone else living in the house, “possess[ed]” it. 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(g)(1). Our review is “de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most

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favorable to the verdict.” United States v. Burch, 113 F.4th 815, 820 (8th Cir. 2024)
(citation omitted).
To state the obvious, it seems exceedingly unlikely that anyone who lived
there would have stored a 9mm pistol in an 8-year-old child’s bedroom. It is
unlikelier still that the location would be underneath some clothes in a laundry
hamper where the child could access it. What clinched it was the child blurting out
that Gatkuoth had “put some stuff in [the] room.” From there, the jury could—and
most likely did—infer that the reason he held his waistband during the chase was to
avoid losing the gun the officers later discovered. See United States v. Stroud, 673
F.3d 854, 857, 861–62 (8th Cir. 2012). It also provided an explanation for why he
decided to run in the first place, given that all he had done up to that point was
commit a routine traffic offense. See United States v. Howard, 977 F.3d 671, 676
(8th Cir. 2020). Bottom line, plenty supported the verdict.
IV.
We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.
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