A 36-year-old New York man was sentenced Monday to 17 years in jail after his conviction on federal charges related to gun trafficking out of Georgia.
Charles Horton, of Buffalo, was a convicted felon prohibited by federal and state law from possessing firearms when he recruited four women to work for him, authorities said. The women, including one who was homeless, were paid to act as straw purchasers to buy 20 firearms on Horton's behalf.
The man gave the women money and drove them to different gun stores in Georgia and South Carolina, prosecutors said. Video surveillance footage presented in court showed how Horton escorted three of the women to more than one gun store.
A tip from a gun dealer led to Horton's capture; he used different rental cars to travel between Buffalo and Atlanta on several times, the ATF determined.
"Law enforcement officers later recovered some of these firearms at crime scenes in the Buffalo area, including at the scene of a murder," U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a news release.
Horton tried to persuade one of the straw purchasers to claim that the guns he purchased had been stolen.
"When he learned he was under investigation, he attempted to tamper with a witness who agreed to testify against him at trial," Yates said.
Scott Sweetow, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Atlanta, said in the news release, "Gun traffickers commit a worse crime than the illegal purchase, sale and transportation of firearms. These criminals provide an iron pipeline of potentially deadly weapons for their own selfish profit at the expense of law abiding citizens and their families."
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