Final Member Of Multi-State Gun Trafficking Scheme Sentenced

MIDDLETOWN, CT – The member of a multi-state Gun Trafficking Scheme that started with the Middletown Police Department investigation of a recovered pistol was sentenced on Aug. 15, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina.

Through a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, said Shyheim Williams, 27, of Williamston, North Carolina, was sentenced to 60 months in prison for engaging in the business of dealing firearms without a license.

Williams was the last of four confidants to be sentenced in a gun trafficking scheme. The organizer, Middletown resident Jacintre Holley, bought over 100 firearms from straw purchases in North Carolina.

The gun trafficking investigation began when the Middletown Police Department recovered a Taurus 9mm pistol used in a murder. A trace of the gun’s serial number showed that the firearm had been purchased by codefendant Keshwan Squire at the Smokin’ Barrel Gun and Ammo in Raleigh, North Carolina.

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, said surveillance records from the store showed Squire made a phone call from the parking lot after purchasing the firearm. Call records revealed he called a Connecticut phone number later linked to Holley. Records showed that Squire and Holley had as a mutual contact a phone number associated with defendant Williams and his girlfriend, codefendant Jasnika Craig.

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, said trace records for Craig showed that he made over 20 firearm purchases in North Carolina since 2020. Craig agreed to a recorded interview and admitted to selling firearms at a premium market price. She admitted that almost all firearms went to Holley, who she estimated had come from Connecticut every two weeks since December 2020 to buy around seven firearms each time. Craig estimated that she had sold around 100 firearms to Holley.

Holley was charged on July 31, 2021. In an interview, he confirmed to have purchased firearms from Williams and Squire multiple times over the previous several months and sold those firearms in Connecticut.

On Feb. 14, 2023, Craig received a 24-month sentence; Squire received an 18-month sentence. Each had pled guilty to one count of making a false statement while purchasing a firearm.

On Feb. 24, 2023, the court sentenced Holley to a 127-month term of imprisonment after he pled guilty to engaging in the business of dealing firearms without a license, possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of the drug trafficking crime.