A drug user who possessed firearms was sentenced November 1, 2024, to 37 months in federal prison.

Brittany Graham, age 37, of Mason City, Iowa, received the sentence after a June 3, 2024, guilty plea to one count of being a prohibited person in possession of firearms. At the plea hearing, Graham admitted that, in August 2022, she possessed four handguns while she was an unlawful user of marijuana. The evidence at sentencing showed that Graham had possessed seven handguns since 2018. Other prohibited persons later possessed some of these guns, including a .357 magnum revolver that was seized from a felon in Chicago less than seven months after Graham purchased it.

Graham was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Judge Leonard T. Strand. Graham was sentenced to 37 months' imprisonment. She must also serve a two-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). PSN is the centerpiece of the Department of Justice's violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Mason City Police Department, the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Office, and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 23-3014.

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