Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – July 18, 2018 – Anthony Patrick Sanders, aka “Ant,” aka Lil A,” 28, of Nashville, Tennessee, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court to the statutory maximum of ten years in prison for being a felon in possession of two firearms, announced U.S. Attorney Don Cochran for the Middle District of Tennessee.   One of those firearms killed a seven-year-old girl in the Napier Homes public housing development in Nashville.   

Sanders was charged in a criminal complaint on June 14, 2017, after the accidental shooting death of 7-year old Harmony Warfield on June 6, 2017.  He was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 12, 2017, and pleaded guilty on November 7, 2017.

According to court documents, in June 2016 Sanders was released from prison after being convicted of kidnapping in 2008.  In or around February 2017, Sanders began frequenting the J.C. Napier Housing Development in Nashville and regularly began selling heroin in the area.  Sanders was known to regularly carry a firearm when he was selling heroin in the area and he frequently stayed at an apartment on Lewis St.

Sanders stayed at the Lewis St. apartment on the night of June 5, 2017.  He awoke the following morning and went outside, leaving a loaded pistol within easy access of anyone inside the apartment.  Shortly thereafter, a juvenile in the apartment picked up the firearm and discharged the weapon, striking Harmony Warfield in the head and killing her.  Sanders then re-entered the apartment and found Harmony laying on the kitchen floor with a gunshot wound to the head. He then retrieved the firearm and fled the area.  Court records indicate that three other children, ages 2, 11 and 14, were in the apartment when the incident occurred.

Sanders eventually fled to a community near Columbus, Ohio where he hid the firearm, which was later recovered by ATF agents.  Sanders later made threatening statements directed at the person he believed helped recover the firearm.  It was also determined that Sanders had taken this firearm from an individual in May 2017, after a fight in the Cayce Homes public housing development in Nashville.  

In sentencing Sanders, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger remarked that this was a very serious case of a felon possessing a firearm because of the resulting tragedy and the defendant’s actions that followed.  Judge Trauger also remarked that the upward variance from the advisory sentencing guidelines of 87-108 months was appropriate in this case.

This case was investigated by the ATF and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department-Youth Services Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Sunny A.M. Koshy prosecuted the case.