CNN
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Four gun traffickers have been charged with illegally promoting over 50 firearms in Brooklyn, marking the first prosecution in New York state under a bipartisan gun safety law enacted final June, legislation enforcement officers introduced at a news convention Wednesday.
Known as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the federal legislation features a gun trafficking provision that creates a standalone firearm trafficking conspiracy offense, which New York prosecutors used to cost the gun traffickers. The act additionally supplies elevated sentences of as much as 15 years in jail for such crimes.
(*4*) US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace stated.
“As the first prosecution to utilize this legislation in New York and one of the first in the country, we are demonstrating that we are prepared to use all the tools at our disposal, new and old, to combat gun violence,” Peace stated.
A seven-count indictment was unsealed in courtroom, charging David Mccann, Tajhai Jones, Raymond Minaya, and Calvin Tabron with conspiring to site visitors over 50 unlawful firearms, Peace stated.
Prosecutors allege there have been a number of unlawful firearm purchases between January 2022 and August 2022, with the weapons being offered throughout the day from autos in and round housing tasks in Brooklyn.
Two members of the gun trafficking operation allegedly obtained the firearms in Virginia and transported them to New York to be offered in Brooklyn, prosecutors stated in a news launch. Some of the firearms allegedly had defaced serial numbers and others have been made out of ghost gun kits, the launch states.
The group allegedly offered the weapons to an undercover New York Police Department officer who recorded a lot of the transactions. The undercover officer allegedly informed the group he was a drug seller and wanted the weapons, with the intent to resell a few of the weapons, prosecutors stated.
The weapons recovered have been traced again to a number of shootings in Brooklyn, prosecutors stated, together with one incident the place eight folks have been struck by gunfire at a household celebration in Brooklyn in April 2022.
Mccann, Jones, Minaya and Tabron have been all arrested Wednesday morning, Peace stated.
Mccann and Minaya are additionally charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine base. Mccann can be charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl, prosecutors stated.
Mccann and Minaya are scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.
Jones and Tabron are scheduled to be arraigned in Virginia. They could have their detention hearings on Friday.
Minaya’s lawyer declined to remark. Mccann’s lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Tabron is represented by Federal Public Defenders, who didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Jones could have an lawyer appointed to him by Criminal Justice Act, in line with an EDNY spokesperson.
This newest arrest marks considered one of the first cases the place the legislation was used.
Last September, a 25-year-old US citizen dwelling in Mexico was charged in reference to trafficking firearms from Texas into Mexico. He was believed to have been the first particular person charged with a part of the Safer Communities Act referred to as the Stop Illegal Trafficking In Firearms Act, in line with a news launch from the US Attorney’s Office from the Southern District of Texas.
The 25-year-old alleged trafficker was caught driving south on Interstate 35 heading to the port in Laredo, Texas, when he was caught with 17 weapons in his automotive, in line with Justice Department officers. In all, he purchased 231 firearms, investigators stated.
The bipartisan act, signed by President Biden in June 2022, was the first main federal gun safety laws in a long time and a big bipartisan breakthrough on considered one of the most contentious coverage points in Washington.
The laws got here collectively in the aftermath of mass shootings at an Uvalde, Texas, elementary faculty and a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
On Wednesday, Peace stated the new legislation makes it simpler to prosecute interstate gun trafficking instances.
“Now we can charge the firearm trafficking itself without the obligation to show that someone was in the business of selling firearms and that’s a significant difference in what proof and evidence we would have to put forward,” Peace stated, noting that the penalty has additionally elevated. “Under the other statutes, the maximum penalties would likely be five or ten years. Under this Act, they’ll be facing up to 15 years.”
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell additionally spoke about the flood of unlawful weapons from close by states with extra relaxed firearm laws, generally referred to as the “Iron Pipeline,” highlighting how police officers were killed in the line of responsibility with unlawful weapons from different cities.
In December 2014, NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos have been shot and killed as they sat in their patrol automotive in Brooklyn, Sewell stated. The gun was purchased in a Georgia pawn store earlier than making its technique to New York City, in line with Sewell.
A yr later, Officer Brian Moore was shot and killed in Queens with a firearm that was stolen from a pawn store in Georgia, Sewell stated.
Officers Wilber Mora and Jason Rivera have been shot and killed final yr whereas responding to a home incident with a gun that was stolen from Baltimore in 2017.
“Every day, NYPD officers, with our partners, will continue to interdict, interrupt, investigate and hold criminals accountable,” Sewell stated. “New Yorkers in every neighborhood should be free from fear and tragedy related to gun violence.”