Marcus Bushnell was one of five people hemmed up in a task force operation that began on February 23 in Newport News, an announcement from NNPD shows.
All five people faced gun charges and three of them, including Bushnell faced drug charges. The 37-year-old was originally charged with illegal possession of a machine gun and 2 counts of cocaine distribution, NNPD announced.
In exchange for his guilty plea on the gun charge, the feds won’t pursue drug charges in this case, court documents show.
Under his plea, Bushnell admitted that on November 8, 2021, he sold an informant a Glock 19 and Glock Switch for $2,000. That transaction was captured on surveillance equipment, the court documents show.
The items the informant bought were sent to the ATF's Firearms Technology Criminal Branch, and one of the reasons why was to determine if this purchase qualified as a machine gun, the documents explain.
The report found that the Glock Switch converts the firearm into “a device that shoots, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger, and is, therefore, a machinegun.”
That Glock Switch also didn’t have any NFA manufacturers marker or serial numbers, the report found. Bushnell also acknowledged all of those facts in the agreement he signed.
Bushnell, who was a convicted felon and previously was a member of the Bloods gang, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), was sentenced to 6 years for selling machine gun conversion devices.
According to the EDVA, this case is part of a larger Organized Crime and Drug Task Force investigation that’s occurring on the Virginia Peninsula.
When Bushnell was arrested in February, that joint operation was led by NNPD and the ATF. The task force also included the DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, Newport News Sheriff's Office, Hampton Police Department, Newport News Commonwealth Attorney's Office and the United States Attorney's Office, said NNPD.
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