Making 'straw buys' at Jacksonville-area gun stores gets Florida man 2-year prison term

A man whose guns kept turning up in Jacksonville police investigations faces two years in federal prison after admitting he was a “straw buyer” in nine illegal gun purchases.

Charles David Mobley, 50, was sentenced last week on a single charge of making a false statement to a licensed gun dealer, namely that he said he would be the permanent owner of three 9mm pistols he was really reselling.

The man Mobley bought those guns for had said he was a felon who couldn’t buy firearms himself but turned out to really be an undercover federal agent, according to court records.

Before Mobley knew that, he told the agent “that he sold firearms for profit and could provide … any firearm or firearms accessories he requested, and provided prices,” according to a plea agreement Mobley signed.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating Mobley in 2021 after Jacksonville police reported recovering several guns during separate investigations that ATF records said Mobley had bought from dealers.

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A tipster told investigators Mobley “operated as a black-market firearms trafficker,” so agents had someone meet him at a Jacksonville apartment complex about buying a Glock .40-caliber pistol, the plea agreement said. After paying Mobley $750 cash, that person told Mobley to meet another man — the undercover agent — and deliver the gun to him.

The agreement said that over the next three months, Mobley also bought the agent an AK-47 pistol, an AR-15 pistol and a Taurus 9mm pistol at two Jacksonville gun shops, then three Taurus 9mm pistols, an AR-15 rifle and a Beretta 9mm pistol at an Orange Park gun and pawn shop, said the plea agreement Mobley signed almost two years ago.

The case sat unresolved after that, with Mobley telling authorities about people he’d bought weapons for earlier and sharing information that helped convict one man of state drug and gun charges.

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Federal sentencing guidelines recommended serving 57 to 71 months behind bars, but prosecutors asked U.S. District Senior Judge Brian Davis for a reduced sentence because of Mobley's help.

Mobley’s attorney argued that the change prosecutors favored could still leave Mobley locked up as long as 57 months, and that doing so “would endanger his health and life” because of medical problems including congestive heart failure and kidney disease.

Assistant Federal Defender Waffa Hanania told the judge that Mobley, who had never been in jail before, had lived modestly before his relationship with a woman addicted to drugs helped push him to make money reselling guns.

Through that relationship, the attorney wrote in a sentencing memo, Mobley became the father of developmentally delayed 2-year-old twins who are being raised by him and his 71-year-old mother, who may be unable to care for the children alone.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 'Straw buyer' for illegal Jacksonville gun deals gets 2 years in prison