Last Tuesday, the Justice Department announced that two individuals, one of them a previously deported illegal alien, were sentenced in connection to a firearms trafficking operation, WSBTV in Atlanta reported.
The US Attorney’s Office for the North District of Georgia said former school assistant DeAndre Cannon purchased around 48 firearms on behalf of Conroy Samuels, an illegal alien and convicted felon who was living in the US under the name Justin Sheffield.
Samuels, a Jamaican in the US illegally, began using the alias after serving time in a US prison for attempted murder and being deported.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, the two men were arrested after “fatally abandoning a dog in a hot car while straw-purchasing firearms.”
Cannon purchased dozens of weapons for Samuels between February and June of last year by passing himself off as a federally licensed firearms dealer from Atlanta. In some instances, Cannon purchased as many as 17 firearms in a week using money from Samuels. The weapons were then sold throughout the United States, including two weapons recovered in Connecticut that were linked to multiple shootings.
The pair were apprehended in mid-June 2022 when AFT agents observed Cannon receiving money from Samuels before entering and leaving a Jonesboro, Georgia pawn shop. Cannon left a dog in the car for about 90 minutes while purchasing the weapons.
When encountering Cannon later, the agents saw the dog suffering from extreme heat. Despite taking the dog for emergency treatment, it later died.
Samuels pleaded guilty in April to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, reentry after deportation, and conspiracy to make false statements to a federally licensed firearms dealer. He was sentenced in August to 105 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Cannon pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to make false statements to a federally licensed firearms dealer and was sentenced last month to 98 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
