| TRENTON –Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced that a Willingboro man and a Trenton man were sentenced to state prison in separate cases involving illegal gun trafficking and gun possession.
Maurice Belle, 26, of Willingboro, was sentenced today to five years in state prison, including three years of parole ineligibility, by Superior Court Judge James W. Palmer Jr. in Burlington County. Belle unlawfully sold a Romarm 7.62 X 39mm semi-automatic rifle with a defaced serial number and an illegal large-capacity ammunition magazine to an undercover officer in November 2011. State Police detectives arranged the sale after learning Belle was trafficking guns.
Belle pleaded guilty on Oct. 22, 2012, to charges of unlawful possession of a rifle and possession of a prohibited large-capacity magazine. He was sentenced to five years in prison, including three without parole, for possession of the rifle, and a concurrent sentence of 365 days in jail for possession of the prohibited large-capacity magazine. Supervising Deputy Attorney General Jill Mayer prosecuted the case and handled the sentencing for the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau.
Yesterday, Walter White, 39, of Trenton, was sentenced to two concurrent terms of five years in state prison without possibility of parole by Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Brown in Mercer County. White pleaded guilty on May 15, 2012 to two counts of unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
White was arrested in Trenton on Oct. 8, 2009 by detectives of the Trenton Police Department while in possession of two semi-automatic handguns, a Hi-Point .380-caliber handgun and a Raven Arms .25-caliber handgun. He had been convicted of aggravated assault with a weapon in Mercer County in 2001, and also had a 2004 conviction in Mercer County for unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon. Deputy Attorney General Daniel I. Bornstein prosecuted the case and handled the sentencing for the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau.
Belle was one of 57 defendants indicted last year by the Division of Criminal Justice in conjunction with the State Police as a result of an initiative launched last year by Attorney General Chiesa to aggressively target gun violence with investigations focused on seizing guns in violent areas, interdicting gun trafficking, and aggressively prosecuting those who sell and possess illegal guns. #### |
