BANGOR, Maine — A Franklin County man was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court to 41 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for possession of three sawed-off shotguns, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced.
Joseph Smith, 66, of Township 6 pleaded guilty to the charge on Dec. 1, 2011.
Court records reveal that in September 2010, Smith possessed three firearms made from shotguns with barrel lengths of less than 18 inches that were not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. The firearms were discovered during the execution of a state search warrant at Smith’s camp in Franklin County, according to a press release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office.
The investigation was conducted jointly by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.
In my opinion,three and a half years is virtually a life sentence at 66 years old. Obviously he new they were illeagle he kept them at camp. what harm were they out in the woods? It appears that after they found no drugs they had to make an arrest so they hit him with a federal charge. Yet another man goes to state court for shooting his neighbor twice with a 357 mag and gets 60 days. Where is the justice
Key word is “federal” and you will almost always do more time on a federal charge than you will a state.
Unless its a federal felony drug trafficing charge.Then you only get a couple of weeks.
I beg to differ the only time i know of is in a fed case in bngr, when a postal (gov.) worker got a lite sentence for stealing veteran’s meds. Imagine that! this case could have been handled in state court but he must have realy po’d the powers that be. Just sayin!!
What the author of this story meant to say but put all that gibberish in the article instead was the person in question did not get a tax stamp before making the NFA ( national Firearms Act ) items in this case a shotgun with less then a 18 inch barrel. A item that IS legal IF you buy on a form 4 or MAKE yourself on a form 1 ( both forms are available form the ATF ) and carry a 200 tax stamp.
I own 3 SBS’s ( Short Barreled Shotgun ) and unlike the person in the story I have TAX STAMPS for all mine.
Yep this guy is going to spend over three years in prison for 600 dollars worth of tax evasion.
That sir is exactly what he is going to do.
Herman, just think about all the carnage and mayhem this man caused by not having federal tax stamps. The poor children.
The other problem with getting charged federaly is they make you plead guilty before you know how much time your going to get. In state court you can make a plea bargain first, the feds don’t deal and if you don’t plead guilty and are found guilty you get even more time. They have guidelines and a sentenceing chart so depending where you fall on the chart and the judge you have that determines your fate.
Yep, that’s American law for ya, where a few inches of metal can mean prison time. Absolute insanity. Don’t give me any of this, “he knew the law, and the law is the law” BS. That’s the mantra of sheep. This guy is going to spend 41 months in prison for breaking a law in which there were no victims.