Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

NEW ORLEANS, La. — U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Gathe, Jr. announced that the Honorable John deGravelles sentenced Jaylon Jamare Smullen, 23, of Denham Springs, to 108 months in federal prison following his convictions for access device fraud and inducing a false statement in the application of a firearm. The Court further sentenced Smullen to serve three years of supervised release following his term of imprisonment and ordered that he pay a total of $27,836.11 in restitution to 49 victims.

According to admissions made as part of his guilty plea, Smullen devised a scheme to fraudulently obtain firearms, AR-15 lower receivers, and parts used to build firearms from federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs) located in the Middle District of Louisiana and outside of the State of Louisiana. To execute the scheme, Smullen recruited, induced, procured, aided and abetted straw purchasers, to complete the firearm transfer paperwork, such as ATF Form 4473, in person, in order to obtain the firearms and AR-15 receivers representing that they were the actual purchasers/transferees of the firearms or lower receivers. To fund his scheme, he obtained and used stolen credit card information belonging to 49 individuals, including the 16-digit credit card numbers, cardholder names and billing addresses, to order firearms, firearm parts and accessories from multiple FFLs located outside of the State of Louisiana for shipment to FFLs and residential addresses in the Middle District of Louisiana.

This matter was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Baton Rouge City Police Department, and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Kristin Lundin Craig and Lyman E. Thornton III. 

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