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Frederick County Sheriff Charles Austin Jenkins, who has led the agency since 2006, was charged with conspiracy and making false statements to acquire the machine guns, prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland announced Wednesday. Robert Justin Krop, owner of the Machine Gun Nest in Frederick, faces the same charges. The indictment also accuses Krop of illegally possessing seven machine guns.
Prosecutors say Jenkins, 66, and Krop, 36, coordinated to “unlawfully purchase machine guns and falsified multiple documents on the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office letterhead requesting machine guns for evaluation and demonstration to the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office.”
Law enforcement and the military can request demonstrations of the highly regulated weapons for possible purchase in a process that involves the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Though the letters requesting the demonstrations were signed by Jenkins, the indictment says, Krop had asked Jenkins to submit the letters so Krop could obtain the guns and rent them to customers. In 2018 and 2019, the indictment stated, the Machine Gun Nest made more than $100,000 in profits from machine gun rentals alone.
Frederick is Maryland’s largest county by geographic size and sits along the Pennsylvania border about 50 miles north of D.C. Jenkins was most recently reelected last year. The Frederick County Sheriff’s Office is the main law enforcement agency for the Maryland jurisdiction of roughly 270,000 residents, according to the department’s website.
Hours after the indictment was announced, the sheriff’s office held a news conference indicating Jenkins will remain in his position for the time being.
Agency spokesman Todd Wivell read a statement from Jenkins, who did not appear at the conference: “I have been in constant communication with the DOJ and ATF for over a year and have been 100 percent cooperative throughout the course of this investigation. At the advice of my attorney, and out of respect for the justice process, I am not providing any comment at this time. I will continue to serve as your sheriff as this process plays out and fully expect my deputies, correctional officers, and staff to remain the true professionals that they are.”
Jenkins “absolutely” did not expect to be indicted, Wivell said. When asked why Jenkins will remain in office when law enforcement officers are sometimes put on leave when charged, Wivell said, “Every situation is different.”
“He feels like he can still support the role of sheriff for Frederick County,” Wivell said. “We all, as an agency, believe in him. There are a lot of people in this county who believe in him as well.”
Jenkins and Krop could not be reached for comment.
Possessing and dealing machine guns is generally prohibited by federal law in the United States, but there are exceptions for government agencies and properly licensed gun shops dealing directly with government officials. By law, any domestic purchase, sale, transfer or importation of a machine gun must be approved by ATF — the process that prosecutors allege Jenkins went through by requesting the machine guns on official sheriff’s office letterhead.
Once ATF approves that request, the machine guns can be moved through a gun shop that is licensed to possess and deal in automatic weapons. Machine Gun Nest possessed those licenses, the indictment said.
Jenkins and Krop properly followed the steps of that process, prosecutors said in court documents, but invalidated the legality of it when the guns were never actually considered for use at the sheriff’s department. In one letter Jenkins signed with his office’s letterhead, the indictment stated, he asked for a demonstration of various models of machine guns that were “particularly suitable for use as a law enforcement weapon, due to cost, availability and its use in day to day patrol as well as special operations.”
But at least one of the machine guns — the FN M249 SAW, which is belt-fed — was “suitable only for combat,” prosecutors wrote.
In a statement announcing the indictment, prosecutors said, “Krop’s business offered political support to Jenkins in recognition of his support for the business.” In the indictment, law enforcement officials cited emails between Jenkins and the business in which the sheriff was praised for his support of them and the Second Amendment. In the emails from May 2022, the business offered to help the sheriff in his upcoming campaign for reelection, according to court documents.
Jenkins has been reelected several times. He has wide support and loyalty from some members of the community, where he is known as an accessible everyman who comes to funerals, carnivals, block parties and resident meetings.
Jenkins, a gun enthusiast and member of the National Rifle Association, has also been the subject of numerous high-profile news moments during his tenure as sheriff of the county where he grew up. In 2013, he was called on to resign after three of his off-duty deputies working security at a movie theater forcibly removed a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, who collapsed and later died. Days before that fatal encounter, two other deputies killed a 19-year-old home-invasion suspect during a raid on the apartment he shared with his mother.
The sheriff has been sued after he was accused of racially profiling a Latina grandmother.
Jenkins also supported and became a popular voice for the national program known as 287(g), which is operated by ICE and empowers state and local law enforcement officials to act with federal authority and question, report and detain undocumented immigrants.
On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Frederick County government directed questions about the investigation to federal authorities.
“The Sheriff is a duly elected official, serving in a role established in the Maryland Constitution,” the statement from Vivian Laxton said. “The County Executive and County Council play no role in the operation of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office beyond funding the division, according to the Frederick County Code and Charter.”
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