Former NC police chief indicted in scheme to illegally obtain machine guns

WSOCTV.com News Staff
·2 min read

A former North Carolina police chief has been federally indicted in a scheme to illegally obtain restricted guns.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland, 53-year-old Matthew Jeremy Hall, from the town of Four Oaks, is one of five people accused in a conspiracy to illegally obtain machine guns and other regulated guns. The other defendants are Sean Reidpath Sullivan of Gambrills, Maryland, Larry Allen Vickers of Charlotte, James Christopher Tafoya of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and James Sawyer of Ray, North Dakota.

Hall and Sawyer were police chiefs in Coats and in Ray, the indictment says. The town of Coats is in Harnett County.

Sullivan worked with the Department of Homeland Security and, in certain situations, could “possess, import, manufacture, and deal in fully automatic firearms (machine guns) and other regulated firearms,” a news release reads.

ALSO READ: 3rd person pleads guilty in romance scam conspiracy

Tafoya and Vickers also had those permissions and owned gun-related businesses in New Mexico and North Carolina.

According to the indictment, from at least June 2018 until March 2021, the five men allegedly “conspired to acquire machine guns and/or other restricted firearms, such as short-barreled rifles, by falsely representing that the firearms would be used for demonstration to law enforcement agencies, including the Coats Police Department and the Ray Police Department.”

There was no indication that the guns would ever be shown to their respective law enforcement agencies, the indictment alleges. In fact, it accuses the men of intending to “impermissibly import into the United States and resell the machine guns and other firearms for profit or to keep for their own use and enjoyment.” Sullivan allegedly kept some of the weapons and gave some to the other defendants.

Vickers pleaded guilty Thursday, in addition to the indictment, to participating in the conspiracy and admitted to receiving some of the imported guns. He also pleaded guilty to “a conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions against a foreign firearms manufacturer between July 2014 and March 2021, in the Southern District of Florida.”

(WATCH BELOW: Man wanted for multi-county check scheme arrested after crashing while fleeing from deputies)