The head of a gun trafficking group that funneled guns illegally bought in Georgia to New Jersey's streets was sentenced to 12 years, seven months in federal prison Thursday.

Clovis Reeves was convicted in May of paying people with clean criminal histories $300 to buy guns that he later sold in New Jersey, where gun laws are tighter.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Zahra Karinshak said this was "the most serious firearms trafficking case I've seen."

"People from New Jersey cannot come down here and recruit desperate people ... to buy firearms," Karinshak said during Reeves' sentencing.

According to testimony, Reeves and his Georgia cousin hired people to buy the guns for him though they claimed the were getting the weapons for themselves.

At least 62 guns from those "straw" purchases, made between February and October in 2005, were sent to New Jersey. Police recovered 13 of those firearms at crime scenes, including one where a bystander was killed in a gang-related drive-by shooting.

Karinshak said 15 guns were recovered within five miles of Reeves' home in Newark.

Before Reeves' sentencing Thursday, seven others involved in the operation had pleaded guilty. Reeves' cousin, Bani Sy Smith of Duluth, was Reeves' primary Georgia connection but Smith was killed in a home invasion last August.

Defense attorney Michael Trost asked the judge not to sentence Reeves to more than 10 years, insisting that his client didn't know where the guns were going. "He bought guns. He trafficked guns. He was indifferent to the consequences," Trost said.

Reeves also pleaded for mercy and described himself as a "church-going man.

"I knew it was wrong," Reeves said in court. "At the time, I thought I needed to do it."