A 36-year-old medical school student filed an appeal to overturn his expulsion. Meanwhile, he agreed to sell an automatic weapon to a person he knew had a felony conviction which prevented him from purchasing a firearm legally.
The student asked the felon if he could have his college professor killed for him—the professor who initiated the expulsion. The felon told him he knew someone who could take care of the problem.
Unbeknownst to the student, the felon was an informant. After the student sold the felon a second firearm, he changed his murder for hire plot to killing his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend and giving the professor a beating until the college ruled on his appeal.
The next day, at a meeting with an undercover officer, the student offered the 'hit man' a machine gun as a down payment for the murder of his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. Law enforcement arrested the student and seized all weapons at his home.
Rather than take his chances in court, the expelled student pleaded guilty to one count of selling a firearm to a known felon.
A U.S. District Court Judge sentenced the ex-medical student to 90 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
The law enforcement officers in this case did a phenomenal job to protect the innocent citizens whose lives were in jeopardy.
Worth Mentioning: The convicted ex-student filed an appeal with the court claiming procedural errors and imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence. As part of the plea agreement, he waived his right to appeal his sentence unless it exceeded the statutory maximum—which it didn’t. Upon review, the court dismissed the entirety of his appeal.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Court of Appeals, The Courier, The Daily Iowan