Top Stories Montgomery

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A federal judge this morning sentenced two Texas men to each serve two years in prison for conspiring to buy a fully automatic grenade launcher last year from a Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives undercover agent.

U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre also ordered Adam Emmanuel Lewis and Antonio Rodriguez-Arellano to serve two years under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office after their release. Both men, who had pleaded guilty earlier this year, were sentenced in separate hearings in Birmingham.

Bowdre also recommended that Lewis undergo Bureau of Prison drug and vocational training programs and as part of his supervised release serve 10 hours of community service.

Rodriguez-Arellano’s attorney, Donald Colee Jr., also told the judge before she imposed the sentence that Rodriguez-Arellano also faces the possibility of deportation once he completes his sentence. Rodriguez-Arellano is a legal permanent resident and if deported he “would be a lost person in Mexico if deported,” Colee said.

Bowdre told Rodriguez-Arellano that deportation is something that someone should consider might happen when they plead guilty.

Bowdre ordered Lewis to report to the prison designated for him by noon on Aug. 16 or report to the U.S. Marshal on that day. Rodriguez-Arellano is already in jail.

“We’re pleased with the sentence. It was a fair disposition for a complex case,” Lewis’ attorney, Bill Barnett, said after his client’s hearing.

Both Bowdre and Assistant U.S. Attorney Enid Athanas each noted the seriousness of having a grenade launcher on the street during the hearings.

Federal authorities have declined to comment on the motive for the men trying to get a grenade launcher but have said it was not terrorism.

Rodriguez-Arellano was arrested Dec. 15 after he paid an undercover ATF agent $24,000 for the MK-19 fully automatic grenade launcher during a meeting at a hotel in Leeds, according to court documents.

ATF Special Agent David Wade Moore stated in an affidavit filed in federal court in Birmingham that he got a call Nov. 30 from a confidential informant who stated he or she had been contacted by a person interested in buying an MK-19 fully automatic grenade launcher built by the informant.

According to the affidavit, Lewis had contacted the informant via messages on gunbroker.com, email and telephone.

Between Dec. 3 and Dec. 14 the undercover ATF agent had a number of conversations with Lewis and Rodriguez-Arellano regarding the purchase of a fully automatic grenade launcher and ammunition from the undercover agent. The undercover agent then agreed to meet with Rodriguez-Arellano at the hotel.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters featured article: Ten Years Of Media Lens – Our Problem With Mainstream Dissidents.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.