12 years for maker, trafficker of 3D-printed guns

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This article was published 04/12/2023 (675 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 19-year-old man who made and trafficked 3D-printed guns to the city’s criminal underworld has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Jackson Prince, who had no prior criminal record, pleaded guilty earlier this fall to one count each of manufacturing and trafficking firearms, possession for the purpose of trafficking firearms and importing prohibited firearm parts.

Prince’s sentence was jointly recommended by Crown attorney Vanessa Gama and defence lawyer Emilie Cook, and matches the sentence handed to another 3D-gun trafficker, Blake Ellison-Crate, last April. At the time, it was touted as the longest of its kind in Canada.

Prince was motivated by nothing but greed, said provincial court Judge Don Slough.

“This is a significant sentence, but these are extraordinary facts,” Slough said. “This court has an obligation to send a message to people who think: ‘I could make a lot of money doing this,’ that you will go to prison for more than a decade… The harm he has done to this community justifies the sentence.”

Prince came to police attention during the same investigation that landed Ellison-Crate in custody.

As per an agreed statement of facts provided to court, Winnipeg police learned Ellison-Crate was “outsourcing” the production of 3D-printed receivers — the base of a handgun in which a slide and trigger are connected — to suppliers he found on Kijiji.

Following Ellison-Crate’s September 2021 arrest, police examined his cellphone and uncovered communications with alleged co-accused Jashon Fernando. Fernando’s arrest in December 2022 and the subsequent analysis of his cellphone revealed Prince’s role as another player in the 3D-printed gun trade.

Beginning Oct. 12, 2022, and continuing almost daily until Fernando’s arrest, Prince and Fernando exchanged 7,500 text messages that discussed the manufacturing and selling of 3D-printed handguns, as well as the manufacturing of “auto switches” that convert a semi-automatic firearm into a fully automatic one.

“During the course of this illicit business partnership, Prince manufactured and trafficked at least 11 firearms to Jashon Fernando… with full knowledge that they are going to be trafficked by Jashon Fernando to the criminal element,” Gama told court, reading from the agreed statement of facts.

Court heard at least one of the firearms was connected to a Winnipeg homicide and another to a shooting at the Red River Exhibition in June 2022.

The text messages revealed Prince sold at least two more firearms to different buyers.

Prince continued to make and traffic firearms on Fernando’s behalf following his arrest, as revealed through text messages to his girlfriend, brother and two friends.

Police executed a search warrant at Prince’s Boyd Avenue home last spring and seized 20 Glock-pistol-style receivers, a 3D-printed AR-15-style rifle and a slew of parts meant to be assembled into functioning guns, Winnipeg police said at the time.

In a statement to police, Prince boasted about how easy it was to make the weapons.

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“You’re making it sound like it’s hard to build these,” he said.

Asked by police if he felt any remorse, Prince said: “I feel normal.”

Prince has a family history of residential school and child and family services involvement, which reduced his moral blameworthiness, said Cook, who described Prince as a “positive and kind person.”

“These Gladue factors don’t disappear over one generation,” Cook said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.