Las Vegas man who sold guns without a license gets 2 years in prison
A Las Vegas man who sold approximately 200 firearms without a federal license was sentenced Tuesday to more than two years in prison, federal authorities said.
A news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nevada said Sylvester Mitchell, 47, was sentenced to 29 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Kent J. Dawson. After his release, Mitchell will then face three years of supervision.
Authorities said between January 2017 and November 2017, Mitchell bought 226 pistols, purchasing guns on a weekly basis. Days or weeks after the purchases, authorities said Mitchell would place online advertisements offering to sell them. Mitchell did not have a license to sell firearms.
“Of those firearms, over 100 were subsequently recovered and found to have been illegally possessed, used in a crime, or suspected to have been used in a crime,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “As of today, five of the firearms Mitchell illegally sold were recovered in connection with homicides.”
An investigation that led to the arrest of Mitchell was carried out by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Mitchell pleaded guilty in October 2019 to one count of dealing in firearms without a license.
Contact Glenn Puit at gpuit@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0390. Follow @GlennatRJ on Twitter.
