Freddie Ward, Straw Purchase, Alabama 2021

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A scheme to 'straw purchase' firearms has led to convictions and sentences for six defendants in Alabama. The scheme involved multiple individuals purchasing firearms from licensed dealers in Alabama, only to transfer them to individuals who could not legally possess them.

One of the defendants, Freddie Ward, 23, of Uniontown, was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Ward pleaded guilty to giving a false statement during the purchase of a firearm in October 2021.

The scheme was uncovered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Explosives, and Firearms (ATF) Birmingham Field Division, which received a referral from the ATF's Crime Gun Intelligence Center about multiple firearms purchases from Three Factors Unlimited, Inc., doing business as Wade's Pawn Shop, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Between November 2019 and March 2021, Demarcus Montez Walker, 25, of Tuscaloosa, purchased approximately 42 handguns from Wade's Pawn Shop. Walker, along with Jeremy Bernard Brown, 30, of Tuscaloosa, and Michael Tiree Coleman, 24, of Tuscaloosa, falsified documents by stating that they were the actual buyers when in fact they were buying the firearms for Dayquan A. Haley, 23, of Boston, Massachusetts, and Darius Marquise Collins, 25, of Boston, Massachusetts.

Haley and Collins provided the straw purchasers with funds to buy firearms and also paid them for purchasing the firearms. On March 11, 2020, a traffic stop was conducted in South Carolina in which Haley was in possession of several firearms, 14 of which were purchased by Walker at Wade's Pawn Shop.

On July 20, 2020, Uniontown police officers encountered Collins and Haley, at the E&Z Event Center in Uniontown, Alabama. Collins and Haley were in possession of multiple firearms which had been purchased by Brown at Wade’s Jewelry and Pawn in July 2020.

These cases are a part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), the centerpiece of the federal government's violent crime reduction efforts.

The PSN program is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndal/pr/multiple-defendants-sentenced-scheme-straw-purchase-firearms