Former police chiefs in North Carolina and North Dakota are among five people charged by DOJ with conspiring to illegally purchase machine guns and other regulated firearms
- Mathew Jeremy Hall, 53, and James Sawyer, 50, were chiefs of police in Coats, NC and Ray, ND, respectively
- They are accused of conspiring to obtain the weapons by claiming they would be used in demonstrations for their police forces
- They were charged Friday, along with Sean Reidpath Sullivan, 38, Larry Allen Vickers, 60, and James Christopher Tafoya, 45.
Two former police chiefs in North Carolina and North Dakota are among five people charged with conspiring to illegally buy and sell machine guns and other regulated firearms.
Matthew Jeremy Hall, 53, and James Sawyer, 50, who served as chiefs of police in Coats, North Carolina, and Ray, North Dakota, respectively, face up to five years in prison on the federal charges.
They have been accused of obtaining the weapons, which include restricted short-barreled rifles, by falsely claiming they would be used in demos for their respective police forces over a two-year period beginning in June 2018.
Ray resigned in February this year due to health reasons. Hall became chief in 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he remains in charge, although he is absent from the Coats police website.
The police were charged by the DOJ on Friday along with Sean Reidpath Sullivan, 38, of Gambrills, Maryland; Larry Allen Vickers, 60, of Charlotte, North Carolina and James Christopher Tafoya, 45, of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Former Coats Police Chief Matthew Jeremy Hall (pictured) was charged along with former Ray, North Dakota Police Chief James Sawyer for conspiring to illegally buy and sell machine guns and other regulated firearms
The two police chiefs were indicted, along with Sean Reidpath Sullivan, 38, of Gambrills, Maryland; Larry Allen Vickers 60, of Charlotte, North Carolina (pictured) and James Christopher Tafoya, 45, of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
According to the indictment, the men all falsely claimed that the firearms would be used for demonstrations at law enforcement agencies, with Hall and Sawyer fraudulently signing documentation known as letters of law to that effect.
Former soldier Sullivan was an intelligence analyst with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, meaning he was licensed to import firearms under certain circumstances.
He is accused of filing false bills with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to import the weapons, before keeping some for himself and passing some to Vickers and Tafoya, which owned firearms companies and also had similar licenses had.
In addition to the charges, Larry Vickers pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in the conspiracy to import and obtain machine guns and other restricted firearms.
He admitted receiving some of the imported machine guns and other weapons and keeping some transferred into his personal collection and others.
The men were indicted on a 26-count indictment announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Maryland
Vickers also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against a foreign firearms manufacturer between July 2014 and March 2021 in the Southern District of Florida.
For these crimes he faces a prison sentence of up to 25 years. Judge Julie R. Rubin has not yet scheduled a sentencing for Vickers.
If convicted, Tafoya and Sullivan also face up to five years in prison for conspiracy to violate the federal firearms law and bill fraud charges.
Sullivan faces an additional 20 years for using criminal proceeds to conduct financial transactions and possessing unregistered firearms.