Traffickers Who Flooded NYC With Guns Face Sentencing, DA Says

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Gun traffickers who supplied firearms to New York City-based dealers are facing more than a decade in prison time, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., announced this week.

Trenton Pointer, 47, was sentenced to serve 13 years in prison and Daemon Jenkins, 42, was sentence to serve 12 years for their roles in the "iron pipeline" that brought guns from states with lax regulations to New York City streets, prosecutors said. Pointer and Jenkins acted as suppliers for the trafficking ring and were convicted on charges of criminal sale of a firearm in the second and third degrees and conspiracy in the fourth degree, prosecutors said.

"These defendants accumulated weapons of war in ‘Iron Pipeline’ states and dumped them on to the streets of Manhattan for profit, putting the safety of countless New Yorkers up for sale," Vance said in a statement.

The suppliers were tied to local gun dealer Abdul Davis, who was sentenced to serve 35 years in prison earlier this year.

Between March 16, 2015, and April 19, 2016, Davis sold an undercover NYPD detective 80 weapons and ammunition in 26 separate transactions, prosecutors said. All the sales took place in the undercover cop's vehicle on West 166th Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue for about $1,150 per firearm, prosecutors said.

Two other suppliers — Milton Tillery and Malik Rainey — were also sentenced for their roles in the trafficking ring earlier this year. Tillery and Rainey purchased weapons in states such as Virginia and Georgia and sold them to Davis. Tillery was sentenced to one-and-a-half to three years in prison and Rainey was sentenced to five years in prison.

The total prison time for the five members of the gun ring adds up to 66-and-a-half years, prosecutors said.

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