{"id":56127,"date":"2022-11-14T21:18:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T02:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=56127"},"modified":"2022-11-14T21:18:31","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T02:18:31","slug":"lehigh-acres-man-sentenced-to-federal-prison-for-straw-purchasing-firearms-for-a-mexican-drug-cartel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/11\/lehigh-acres-man-sentenced-to-federal-prison-for-straw-purchasing-firearms-for-a-mexican-drug-cartel\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Acres Man Sentenced To Federal Prison For Straw Purchasing Firearms For A Mexican Drug Cartel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell has sentenced Gabriel Acosta, Jr. (28, Lehigh Acres) to 3 years and 1 month in federal prison for falsifying records relating to firearms purchases. Acosta had pleaded guilty on May 25, 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Acosta-Jr.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-56128\" width=\"242\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Acosta-Jr.jpg 480w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Acosta-Jr-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 242px) 100vw, 242px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>According to court records, between December 2018 and March 2019, Acosta purchased multiple high-powered rifles from licensed gun dealers in Fort Myers and Cape Coral at the request of a Mexican drug cartel.&nbsp;For each purchase, Acosta falsely certified in ATF paperwork that he was purchasing the firearms for himself, when in truth he knew he was straw-purchasing them for a Mexican drug cartel in exchange for cash kickbacks. After the firearms were purchased, Acosta would travel to Laredo, Texas to offload the guns to a cartel associate. Since late-2019, three firearms straw-purchased by Acosta in Florida have been recovered by Mexican military personnel following firefights with suspected cartel members.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This case was investigated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Simon R. Eth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell has sentenced Gabriel Acosta, Jr. (28, Lehigh Acres) to 3 years and 1 month in federal prison for falsifying records relating to firearms purchases.&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":56128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[1922],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56130,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56127\/revisions\/56130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}