Leopold Rob Finley, a 45-year-old from Candler, N.C., has been handed a 48-month prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release for possessing ammunition in a so-called “ghost gun,” as per an announcement by Russ Ferguson, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. Notably, this isn’t Finley’s first brush with the law, given his preceding federal drug conviction.
The ghosts of Finley’s past include a traffic stop by the Asheville Police Department (APD) officers on December 20, 2022, wherein a gun with no serial number and no means of immediate traceability—commonly referred to as a “ghost gun”—was found in his vehicle. In it, 15 rounds of 9mm ammunition lay loaded, a discovery with weightier consequence given Finley’s already delicate status of being on federal supervised release for a prior conviction of drug distribution – a narrative threaded by tales of heroin and fentanyl peddling, and marijuana possession, according to details from the Department of Justice.
Bennie Mims, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Charlotte Field Division, and Chief Michael Lamb of APD joined U.S. Attorney Ferguson in announcing the sentence. The collaboration between ATF and APD underscores a shared commitment to stemming the proliferation of unregulated firearms…