Morton man sentenced for returning to his son the gun used in Waffle House shooting

PEKIN — A rural Morton man was sentenced to 18 months in prison Friday for illegally giving his son weapons that were later used in a 2018 mass shooting.

Jeffrey Reinking, 59, will likely serve about half of that, given his eligibility for day-for-day "good time" credit. An appeal is likely and Tazewell County Chief Judge Chris Doscotch gave him 90 days to prepare that appeal before he has to report to begin serving his sentence.

More:Attorney: Reinking family 'heartbroken and devastated' over Waffle House shootings

Reinking was convicted last May after a bench trial of illegal delivery of a firearm to a person who had been treated for mental illness within the past five year

At issue during the one-day bench trial was whether Reinking knew his son, Travis, had undergone mental health treatment in 2016. The elder Reinking maintained at trial that he didn't know his son had been taken to an area hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on May 26, 2016, after an incident in Morton.

Prosecutors, however, contended that's something that a father would know. On that date, police and fire personnel responded to a CVS pharmacy parking lot in Morton where Travis Reinking told sheriff's deputies he believed singer Taylor Swift was stalking him and had hacked into his cellphone.

According to reports obtained in 2018 by the Journal Star, Reinking was brought to UnityPoint Heath-Methodist in Peoria for an evaluation. Reinking, the brief report states, had agreed to go to the hospital.

Last year, Travis Reinking was convicted and then sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting four people at a Waffle House in Nashville. Tennessee, in 2018. The weapon he used, an AR-15, was one of the guns his father had given back to him.

More:Tazewell County Sheriff's Office says it never had custody of Travis Reinking's weapons

Jeffrey Reinking had taken his son's weapons after Travis Reinking's FOID card was revoked in 2017. However, he gave them back after Travis moved to Tennessee. The Illinois State Police had revoked the younger Reinking's FOID card after he moved out of state, not because he was being for a mental illness, according to Journal Star archives.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Morton man sentenced for returning guns used in Waffle House shooting