LAWFUEL – Legal Newswire – R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Julie Torres, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Miami Field Office, announced that defendant Sammie Scales, of Indiantown, Martin County, was sentenced today in United States District Court on charges of being a convicted felon in illegal possession of a firearm, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 922(g), and the unlawful possession and use of a firearm in the course of committing a crime punishable by federal law, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 924c. Scales had previously pled guilty to these charges on September 5, 2007.
Today, Scales was sentenced to a total of 327 months in prison: 267 months on the first count of illegal firearm possession, and a consecutive 60 month sentence for the unlawful use and possession of a firearm during and in relation to another federal crime.
According to statements made in open Court, on June 3, 2007, Martin County Sheriff’s officers arrested Scales on an outstanding arrest warrant. A search incident to Scales’s arrest revealed a 38 caliber HiPoint pistol and illegal narcotics in Scales’s possession. Scales had been previously convicted in Florida on at least three prior occasions of felony drug trafficking crimes. Under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, Scales qualified for an Armed Career Criminal category for enhanced sentencing.
The case was brought by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as part of Operation Hard Time for Gun Crime and the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Neighborhoods, both programs designed to combat violent gun crimes.
Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Martin County Sheriff’s Office for their work on this case. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Theodore M. Cooperstein.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
