AKRON — A 27-year-old Akron man who federal prosecutors say recruited other people to buy firearms for him was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in federal prison on drug and firearms trafficking charges. Gary Robinson pleaded guilty to distribution of marijuana, possession of a firearm in the furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and trafficking in firearms, federal prosecutors said in a news release reported by the Akron Beacon Journal.
U.S. District Judge Philip Calabrese sentenced Robinson to the eight-year prison term and ordered him to pay a $500 fine, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Prosecutors identified five co-defendants in the case; four of them were sentenced to prison or probation, according to the Beacon Journal.
The practice at the center of the case is known as straw purchasing — recruiting someone who can legally buy a gun to make the purchase on behalf of someone else. Prosecutors said investigators looking into suspected drug trafficking activity in Akron identified Robinson and one co-defendant as trafficking marijuana and at least 19 firearms, the Beacon Journal reported.
Robinson recruited three women to buy guns at licensed sellers in Barberton and Canton, prosecutors said. A fourth person went to a gun store in Coventry Township. To make the purchases, the recruits lied on federal firearms forms, posing as the true buyers, and then turned the guns over to Robinson, according to prosecutors as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal.
Federal law requires buyers to answer truthfully on those forms about whether they are purchasing a firearm for themselves, and lying on the form is itself a federal crime — one reason straw purchasing cases often sweep in recruits with no prior record alongside the person who organized the scheme.
The sentencing closes the federal case against Robinson, the man prosecutors described as the organizer of the Akron trafficking activity. The four sentenced co-defendants have also resolved their cases with prison or probation terms, according to the Akron Beacon Journal’s reporting of the prosecutors’ announcement.
What happens next for the remaining co-defendant was not detailed in the announcement reported Tuesday. Federal officials routinely use straw-purchasing prosecutions to trace firearms recovered in later crimes back to the licensed dealers and buyers who first put them into circulation.