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| Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins |
Federal prosecutors dropped their criminal case against a county sheriff in Maryland who had been accused of working with the owner of a gun shop to illegally obtain machine guns by using law enforcement credentials, and then renting them out to make money, according to a court filing. “Today, the government finally did the right thing,” Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins said Tuesday. “This has been pure hell for myself and my entire family and even my friends.”
The request to drop the case, granted by U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, came after a co-defendant, a Maryland gun dealer, was acquitted at trial last month.A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland declined to comment on why the case was dropped. Jenkins, 68, has long maintained his innocence. “For 587 days, I’ve been the target of a malicious and I believe a political persecution,” he said Tuesday.
In office since 2006, Jenkins long ago became a central figure in Frederick, known for his flattop haircut and presence at funerals, carnivals, block parties and resident meetings. He staked out an aggressive stance on detaining undocumented immigrants who are charged with crimes, which made him a national voice on that debate while sharpening opinions of him at home.
That could make him a target of the Biden administration.
Jenkins took a brief leave of absence after the investigation became public last year but returned to running the sheriff’s office a short time later and remained in charge for much of the case. He said that was encouraged to not give in by his family, friends, supporters — and others — and compared the criminal case to the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. “I feel like this was an assassination attempt very similar to President Trump on July 13th,” he said. “I really do, in retrospect. It was a near miss. I was injured and I was bloodied, but I didn’t give up the fight.”
The case against Jenkins centered on claims that he had falsified paperwork related to machine gun demonstrations. More specifically, federal authorities alleged that Robert Krop, owner of the Machine Gun Nest, a gun range and retail shop in Frederick, worked with Jenkins to produce phony letters that were submitted to gun regulators at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The letters ostensibly sought a demonstration at Krop’s range for specific machine guns that the sheriff’s office might want to purchase, according to court filings by prosecutors. The models included a belt-fed model authorities said was designed for combat.
Krop also maintained his innocence, launched an aggressive defense and was found not guilty on all five counts at trial last month. In a statement Tuesday, Krop’s attorney, Daniel Cox, said that case had been brought with “vexatious, frivolous, and bad-faith false charges.”
In earlier court filings, Cox had cast the matter as an attack on gun rights. “Should the Biden Administration’s vindictive prosecution of Mr. Krop and/or Sheriff Jenkins result in shuttering the primary firearms business in Frederick, Md., or the Sheriff’s resignation or removal from office, it well knows that a chill over the exercise of Second Amendment rights will be felt,” Cox wrote.
Prosecutors countered that such “political statements” had “nothing to do with either the law or the facts in this case.”
My ass. So, did the DOJ see the train (Donald J Trump) at the end of the tunnel, and decide to end this prosecution before he did?
More from Tom Knighton at Bearing Arms, Maryland Sheriff's Experiences Hopefully Example of What WON'T Happen Going Forward
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