Four gun dealers face charges in New York, the first prosecution in the state under a bipartisan gun safety bill passed in June.



CNN

Four gun dealers were charged with illegally selling more than 50 firearms in Brooklyn, the first criminal prosecution in New York State. bipartisan gun safety law The law was passed last June, law enforcement officials said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Known as Bipartisan Safer Communities Actfederal law includes a gun dealing statute that creates a separate offense of trafficking in firearms, which the New York City Attorney’s Office used to prosecute gun dealers. Act also provides for increased sentences of up to 15 years in prison for such crimes.

“Prosecutions for gun trafficking prior to the bipartisan Safer Communities Act were based on laws relating to the unlicensed sale, transportation, and delivery of firearms, as well as false claims made to firearms dealers. By using the new indictment law today, we can streamline these prosecutions by making firearms conspiracy a separate federal crime,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said.

“As the first prosecution to use this law in New York and one of the first in the country, we are demonstrating that we are ready to use every tool at our disposal, new and old, to combat gun violence,” said Pis.

A seven-count indictment was uncovered in court, according to Peace, in which David McCann, Tajhai Jones, Raymond Minaye and Calvin Tabron were charged with conspiracy to traffic in more than 50 firearms.

Prosecutors allege that there were several illegal firearm purchases between January 2022 and August 2022, with guns being sold throughout the day from vehicles in and around Brooklyn residences.

Two participants in a gun-trafficking operation allegedly obtained firearms in Virginia and transported them to New York for sale in Brooklyn, prosecutors said. Some of the firearms allegedly had their serial numbers erased, while others were made from ghost weapon kits, the report said.

The group allegedly sold weapons to an undercover NYPD officer who recorded many of the transactions. The undercover officer allegedly told the group that he was a drug dealer and needed a weapon with the intent to resell some of the weapons, prosecutors said.

The seized weapons were linked to several shootings in Brooklyn, including one incident in which eight people were shot at a Brooklyn family holiday in April 2022, prosecutors said.

According to Peace, McCann, Jones, Minaya and Tabron were arrested on Wednesday morning.

A seven-count indictment was uncovered in court in which David McCann, Tajhai Jones, Raymond Minaye and Calvin Tabron were charged with conspiracy to traffic in more than 50 firearms.

McCann and Minaya are also charged with conspiracy to distribute and possession of cocaine base to distribute. McCann is also charged with conspiracy to distribute and possession to distribute fentanyl, prosecutors said.

McCann and Minaya are due to appear in court on Wednesday afternoon.

Jones and Tabron are due to stand trial in Virginia. On Friday, they will have a hearing on the detention case.

Minaya’s lawyer declined to comment. McCann’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tabron is represented by federal public defenders, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jones will have an attorney assigned under the Criminal Justice Act, an EDNY spokesperson said.

This latest arrest marks one of the first instances of the law being enforced.

Last September, a 25-year-old US citizen living in Mexico was charged in connection with trafficking firearms from Texas to Mexico. He was believed to be the first person to be charged under a portion of the Safer Communities Act, known as the Firearms Stop Act, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

The 25-year-old alleged trafficker was caught driving south on Interstate 35 towards the port in Laredo, Texas, when he was caught with 17 guns in his car, according to Justice Department officials. According to investigators, he bought a total of 231 firearms.

bipartisan act, signed by President Biden in June 2022was the first major federal gun safety law in decades and a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of Washington’s most contentious policy issues.

The legislation came after mass shootings at Uwalde, Texas Elementary School and a Buffalo, New York supermarket in a predominantly black neighborhood.

On Wednesday, Peace said the new law would make it easier to prosecute interstate gun cases.

U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace during a press conference.

“Now we can blame the firearms trade itself without the obligation to prove that someone was involved in the sale of firearms, and this is a significant difference in what evidence and evidence we would have to present,” Peace said, noting that the punishment has also increased. . “Under other laws, the maximum sentence is likely to be five or ten years. Under this law, they face up to 15 years.”

NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell also spoke about the flow of illegal weapons from neighboring states with looser gun regulations, commonly known as the “iron pipeline”, highlighting how cops were killed while on duty with illegal weapons from other cities.

In December 2014, NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot and killed while sitting in their squad car in Brooklyn, according to Sewell. According to Sewall, the gun was purchased from a pawnshop in Georgia and then shipped to New York.

A year later, Officer Brian Moore was shot dead in Queens with a firearm stolen from a pawnshop in Georgia, Sewall said.

Officers Wilber Mora and Jason Rivera were shot and killed last year while responding to a domestic incident involving guns that were stolen from Baltimore in 2017.

“Every day, the NYPD, along with our partners, will continue to stop, interrupt, investigate, and bring criminals to justice,” Sewell said. “New Yorkers in every neighborhood must be free from the fear and tragedies associated with gun violence.”