By Tim McGlone
The Virginian-Pilot
NORFOLK, Va. — A former museum director was sentenced Monday to three years in prison after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to buying a rotary machine gun used on F-14 fighter jets.
Wayne Miller, 49, of Maryland, admitted that he went to Oceana Naval Air Station in 2005 and bought the machine gun from a Navy chief petty officer in charge of decommissioning aircraft.
Miller, who worked then as an executive director of the Aviation Hall of Fame in Teterboro, N.J., was planning on opening a flight simulator business.
Two others were arrested and convicted in the case, but prosecutors labeled Miller “the driving force behind the conspiracy.”
Federal authorities learned that the Navy man, Matthew Sutton, was stealing Navy aircraft parts and selling them. Sutton pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison. A third person, Jody Goucher, who acted as the middle man, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison.
Miller’s lawyer, Arenda Allen, told the court that Miller’s “visions of grandeur” in creating a “super-duper” flight simulator business went awry when he began buying F-14 parts, including the machine gun and a tail fin, on the black market.
The jet-mounted machine gun, which was operational, weighs 300 pounds and can fire 6,000 rounds a minute.
Miller “never intended any harm or evil to anyone,” Allen said in a court filing.
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