Michael Pittman, a 30-year-old man from the District of Columbia, has been handed a seven-year prison sentence for his role in trafficking over 200 illegal firearms to the DC area, a stance announced by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro. In his guilty plea made back on April 14, 2025, Pittman admitted to the conspiracy to commit firearms trafficking, which earned him 84 months behind bars followed by three years of supervised release, as ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
Special Agent in Charge Anthony Spotswood of the ATF Washington Field Division and MPD Chief Pamela A. Smith were also on deck to quickly communicate the sentence. Court documents unveiled that Pittman regularly rented cars to make trips down to Georgia and North Carolina, where he would purchase guns from suppliers operating on the wrong side of the law. Attempting to flip these guns quickly, Pittman advertised them in the DC area, even posting photos of firearms sprawled across his bed with prices attached.
The operation stopped on May 30, 2024, when Pittman was cuffed by Virginia State Police in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. The arrest occurred as he was making the trek back to DC, after another one of his gun-buying sprees. The end was cinematic, albeit not for Pittman – he crashed his vehicle during a police pursuit and took a desperate run into the woods. The law enforcement recovered his backpack filled with 16 firearms, along with another gun he dropped during the chase, and two more left behind in his vehicle…