Brooklyn Boro

Final defendant in Georgia gun trafficking ring sentenced to 10 years

August 15, 2016 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson. Eagle file Youtube screenshot
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Brooklyn’s top lawman and its chief executive each made headlines this week with major local developments on the gun control front.

On Monday, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson announced that a Georgia man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for trafficking firearms from Georgia to Brooklyn up Interstate 95, commonly referred to as the “Iron Pipeline.”

The DA identified the defendant as Rodney Brewer, 49, of LaGrange, Georgia. He was sentenced Monday by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to 10 years in prison and five years’ post-release supervision, following his guilty plea on June 10 to one count of first-degree criminal sale of a firearm, one count of first-degree criminal possession of a weapon and one count of fourth-degree conspiracy.

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Brewer’s five codefendants, including his nephew, Michael Quick, the ring’s mastermind, were previously convicted and sentenced. 

Thompson said that according to the investigation, between September 2013 and April 2014, Quick, who was sometimes accompanied by Brewer, made 13 car trips from Georgia to Canarsie up the I-95 corridor, transporting as many as 25 firearms at a time, and sold them to an undercover NYPD officer at the corner of Foster Avenue and East 96th Street. Brewer was also responsible for purchasing guns in Georgia for transport to New York, where they were sold at a huge profit margin, e.g., a .9 mm gun bought in Georgia for $200 sold in Brooklyn for $1,000.

During the course of the investigation, 151 weapons were trafficked from Georgia to New York, including an AR-15 assault rifle, an MAC-11 subcompact machine pistol, two TEC-9 semiautomatic pistols and a variety of pistols and revolvers, many of which were loaded.

Some of the firearms were purchased in stores and others were stolen, the investigation found. Wiretaps revealed that the defendants communicated about purchasing guns that are easily concealed, the logistics of transporting them, price negotiations with Georgia suppliers and wiring money from New York to Georgia to facilitate the initial gun purchases.

On Tuesday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams kicked off a competition in which teams from local colleges will design “smart gun” technology that will prevent unauthorized users from being able to fire a gun, with the winning team receiving a $1 million award for their school. (For more details on the “smart gun” story, see page 1).


Information from the Brooklyn DA’s Office


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