3 US Army soldiers charged with supplying guns used in Chicago shootings
CHICAGO - Three U.S. Army soldiers are accused of supplying guns used in recent shootings and murders in Chicago.
Jarius Brunson, 22, Brandon Miller, 22, and Demarcus Adams, 21, were arrested Tuesday and charged in federal court.
All three soldiers were stationed at Fort Campbell along the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
The investigation into the three suspects began after a mass shooting on Chicago’s South Side on March 26, as police say five of the firearms involved in the shooting were purchased from gun dealers in Tennessee.
Detectives soon discovered that Adams, Brunson and Miller were allegedly the buyers of some of the firearms used in the South Side shooting.
According to a criminal complaint, Miller would allegedly provide guns he purchased in Tennessee and Kentucky to acquaintances he knew in Chicago.
On April 28, a federal search warrant was executed at the Clarksville home of Miller and Adams. Police say they found 49 empty firearm cases in the pair’s possession. Most of the empty cases were matched to guns recovered by Chicago police at recent crime scenes.
The three suspects were charged with transferring a firearm to an out-of-state resident, providing a false statement during the purchase of a firearm, engaging in the business with a firearms license, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit Title 18 offenses, and laundering of monetary instruments.
The suspects, if convicted, could face up to 20 years in prison.