By Maxine Bernstein
oregonlive.com
PORTLAND — A man behind bars in Portland directed his girlfriend on a jail call to buy guns for him as she shopped at a Keith’s Sporting Goods store, picking out an FN Herstal Five-Seven pistol, laser beam attachments and extended magazines.
She listened to his instructions over her Bluetooth headphones, according to court documents.
The recorded call even picked up a store clerk in the background, according to prosecutors.
The inmate, in jail on a menacing conviction, then boasted to others on subsequent jail calls about the purchase, talking about how the Five-Seven pistol can pierce a ballistic vest, prosecutors said.
The store clerk became suspicious of the sale and alerted police after the woman left, saying it appeared she may have bought the guns illegally for someone else.
Federal agents searched the girlfriend’s home and seized four guns, according to the court records. A search of her cellphone uncovered messages she sent expressing her concern she would get in trouble for buying the guns for her boyfriend, the records said.
On Tuesday, Jaquon Isaiah Harris, 30, pleaded guilty in federal court in Portland to conspiracy to buy a firearm through false statements. The felony is punishable by up to five years in prison.
On one jail call, Harris admitted that his girlfriend bought a gun for him, according to the court documents. He talked about trafficking guns with others and expressed excitement about getting to shoot them one day, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lewis Burkhart.
Harris’ “brazen attempt to purchase firearms on recorded jail calls shows the lengths Defendant is willing to go to break the law,” Burkhart wrote in a court memo. He requested that Harris remain in jail pending sentencing.
The FN Herstal Five-Seven pistol is named for its 5.7×28mm bullet diameter, which is fired at a very high speed.
Harris’ boast about the gun’s ability to shoot through a ballistic vest “is incredibly alarming,” Burkhart said.
At the time the purchases occurred last May, Harris was in jail for violating the terms of his post-prison supervision on convictions for menacing and unlawful use of a weapon in 2016, according to court records.
Harris had assaulted his girlfriend and threatened to stab her with a pair of scissors, court records show.
Harris also has prior convictions for robberies, attempted burglary, battery, aggravated assault and domestic violence in Oregon, Massachusetts and Idaho, Burkhart noted.
Harris’ defense lawyer Fidel Cassino-DuCloux didn’t challenge his client’s continued detention. Harris is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 23.
A charge of conspiracy to make false statements during the purchase of a gun is pending against his co-defendant, Brianna Price-Cornelius.
Jason Chudy, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said buying guns for someone barred from having guns, known as straw purchasing, “is something we pay close attention to and take very seriously.”
“We’ve seen and investigated such straw purchases, " Chudy said. “I don’t recollect any directed from jail per se, but I can’t imagine it’s the first time.”
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