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Bluffs man sentenced to prison for possessing a machine gun

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July 11th, 2013 by Ric Hanson

The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports a Pottawattamie County man was sentenced today (Thursday) to a little more than four-years in prison on a weapons charge. 24-year Jordan James Collier, of Council Bluffs was sentenced in U-S District Court on a charge of illegal possession of a machine gun. Chief United States District Court Judge James E. Gritzner sentenced Collier to 51 months in prison, to be followed by 1 year of supervised release. Collier was also ordered to pay a $100 special assessment for the Crime Victim Fund, and to forfeit the machine gun and two other firearms he had possessed.

In addition, Chief Judge Gritzner ordered Collier to pay $1,200 in restitution to the person from whom Collier had stolen the firearms. Collier remained in the custody of the United States Marshal’s Service pending either designation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons facility at which he will serve his federal sentence, or surrender to Pottawattamie County or Kossuth County authorities regarding State of Iowa charges pending against Collier in those counties.

Collier was sentenced upon his plea of guilty entered on February 8, 2013, to illegal possession of a machine gun. Collier was arrested subsequent to an investigation by the Council Bluffs Police Department regarding two rifles which Collier pawned at a local pawn shop. The firearms were determined to have been stolen from a residence in Kossuth County, Iowa. Collier had also attempted to pawn the machine gun. The machine gun was a functional Swiss-K Vietnam War era automatic rifle.

The sentence imposed upon Collier also took into account that the three firearms were stolen. This case was investigated by the Council Bluffs, Iowa, Police Department, with assistance from the Kossuth County Sheriff’s Department, and the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.