Career Offender With Machine Gun Gets 13 Year Prison Sentence

ATLANTA, GA - Franklin Latimore of Atlanta has been sentenced to 13 years, three months in federal prison for possessing an unregistered machine gun while being a felon.

Latimore is considered a “career offender” under federal law because he has two prior felony convictions for either a crime of violence or a drug trafficking offense.

“Machine guns are an especially dangerous category of firearms,” said U. S. Attorney John Horn. “When these weapons are possessed by individuals with serious criminal histories, the threat that machine guns pose increases exponentially.”

Latimore first came to the attention of police after a court-authorized wiretap intercepted a conversation concerning the sale of a large amount of cocaine. Police did not know who the buyer was going to be, but knew the location and time of the supposed deal. On that date and time, police made a lawful traffic stop of a vehicle that Latimore was driving near the drug deal and found over $100,000 in the trunk.

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A few days later, a search warrant was served on Latimore’s residence and police found the loaded machine gun, a second firearm, a kilogram press typically used by drug dealers to create brick-shaped blocks of drugs, and material commonly used to package drugs. Latimore’s criminal history is so severe that special enhanced sentencing applies to him.