United States Drug Enforcement Administration

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK –Jovaun Clark, 45, of Syracuse, New York, was sentenced yesterday to serve 87-months in federal prison for possessing unregistered machine guns and short-barreled rifles, possessing firearms and ammunition while a convicted felon, and selling firearms and ammunition to a convicted felon, announced United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman, John B. DeVito, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Division of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Chief Kenton Buckner, City of Syracuse Police Department, and Acting Special Agent in Charge Tim Foley, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, New York Division.

As part of his guilty plea, Clark admitted to selling seven (7) firearms and numerous rounds of ammunition in an undercover enforcement operation in January 2019.  Five (5) of the firearms were “ghost guns” bearing no serial number, two (2) were handguns that had been modified to operate as machine guns, and two (2) were illegal short-barreled rifles. None of the machine guns and short-barreled rifles were registered to the defendant as required by federal law.  In 1999, the defendant was convicted in Onondaga County Court of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree, a felony offense.

United States District Judge David N. Hurd further imposed a 3-year term of supervised release, which will start after Clark is released from prison. 

This case was investigated by United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Syracuse Police Department (Intelligence Section), and the DEA Syracuse Resident Office, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas Sutcliffe and Richard Southwick.

This prosecution was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts.  PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.