Navy vet says he sold machine gun to help family...

OFF THE WIRE
By: Emily Babay
Navy vet says he sold machine gun to help family....
A Navy veteran who became president of a motorcycle gang in Virginia after returning to the United States will serve a year-and-a-half in prison for illegally possessing and selling a machine gun he brought back from Iraq.
But 30-year-old Justin Wilson says he only sold the weapon to help his cash-strapped family.
Wilson, of Virginia Beach, was sentenced in federal court in Alexandria this month after having pleaded guilty in September.
He was charged in June of selling a Russian-made, automatic AK-47 to an undercover Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent. At the time, Wilson was the president of the Virginia Beach chapter of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, a gang associated with drug dealing, extortion, firearms, money laundering and other criminal activity.
He recovered the weapon in a warehouse on an abandoned Iraqi base, according to court documents.
In a letter submitted to the court, Wilson said he lost his position in the Naval Special Warfare Development Group after joining the motorcycle club. He said another active-duty sailor was also a member and he didn't expect to lose his job.
In court documents, prosecutors say Wilson discussed with undercover ATF agents a plan to stage the theft of his motorcycle in order to file a fraudulent insurance claim. He then sold an agent the motorcycle for $1,200 and filed a false report with Fairfax County police.
When Wilson learned his insurance policy wouldn't cover the theft report, he offered to give the agent the AK-47 and two ballistic vests instead of immediately repaying the $1,200, court records say.
Wilson was preparing to move to Illinois to train for a new position and needed the money to help his mother move to Virginia to care for his two children, he wrote in the letter.
"I was low hanging fruit" for the agent, who "offered me the idea of giving him my motorcycle and claim it on insurance," Wilson wrote.
In the letter, Wilson claims that he "literally stumbled across the gun" in a debris-filled warehouse. He said he brought it to the United States as a "war trophy" and did not intend to use it.
But prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum that Wilson's affiliation with the motorcycle gang indicated he believed the weapon would be used for criminal activity when he sold it.
Wilson "almost certainly believed that the buyer planned to use the machine gun and vest panels to commit acts of violence," prosecutors wrote.

ebabay@washingtonexaminer.com



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-punishment/2010/12/navy-vet-says-he-sold-machine-gun-help-family#ixzz17O1U4rMh


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-punishment/2010/12/navy-vet-says-he-sold-machine-gun-help-family#ixzz17O15o5nI