In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Gun count loads up prison time
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Gun count loads up prison time Monday, December 24, 2001By John O'Brien A Syracuse man was sentenced to 19? years in prison last week for possessing a gun as a career criminal.U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue imposed the sentence on Anthony King, the first person charged under Project SAFE, Strategically Applied Firearms Enforcement. The program is designed to reduce gun violence in the Syracuse area by moving selected gun prosecutions out of state court and into the federal system, where potential sentences are longer for gun offenses.If he'd been convicted in state court, King would have faced no more than seven years in prison.King, 37, of 160 Kenmore Ave., had a loaded .45-caliber automatic pistol pointed at another man holding a gun in February 2000 when Syracuse police Officers Kevin Hamburger and Gregory Tackley interrupted the standoff and chased King down, police said.King claimed in court that he possessed the gun only after wrestling it away from the other man, and denied that the officers chased him down.His lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Lisa Peebles, told the judge that King was being unfairly punished for his criminal history. She said his previous convictions were a result of poor legal representation."I don't think it warrants 19 years in prison," she said of the gun charge.King was charged with at least six crimes over the past 19 years, and was convicted three times of felonies involving drugs or violence, according to federal prosecutors.In 1982, he was charged with beating a Syracuse University football player so severely that the player suffered irreparable brain damage. King pleaded guilty to assault in that case.King was the first person in at least eight years in Central New York to be sentenced in federal court as an "armed career criminal," according to Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan.A career criminal is someone with three previous convictions for serious drug offenses or violent crimes. That history and the handgun possession automatically brought lengthier sentences.More than 80 people have been prosecuted in federal court under SAFE since the program began early last year, Duncan said. c 2001 The Post-Standard. Used with permission. http://www.syracuse.com/news/syrnewspapers/index.ssf?/newsstories/20011224_rmgun.html
Comments