A Bethlehem man has been sentenced to over four years in prison following his guilty plea to numerous charges including drug distribution and firearms offenses. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Matthew Romig, 38, will serve 57 months' imprisonment, with an additional six years of supervised release, and is also required to pay a $900 special assessment.
Romig's legal troubles began with an indictment in October 2024, encompassing five counts of distributing a controlled substance and one count each of possession with intent to distribute, possession within a proximity to a school or playground, possession of a firearm by a felon, and possession of an unregistered machine gun. In January, he entered a guilty plea to all the charges against him. As a previously convicted felon, for a robbery in 2005, Romig was prohibited from legally possessing any firearm.
During a search of Romig's residence on Hayes Street, law enforcement discovered cocaine and an illegally modified .45 caliber MAC-10 select-fire machine pistol, as reported by the authorities. The weapon was not only unregistered but had been altered to full-automatic mode and had an obliterated serial number. "Matthew Romig endangered his community, selling cocaine and arming himself with a deadly weapon," stated U.S. Attorney David Metcalf. “He wasn’t allowed to have any firearm, let alone a submachine gun set to full automatic, with extended magazine and suppressor. It’s critical to get dangerous drugs off the street and illegal guns out of criminals’ hands, to crack down on violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer,” as noted by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The case against Romig was built by the combined efforts of the ATF, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office, and the Bethlehem Police Department, under the aegis of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program, and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebecca Kulik and Robert Schopf. Special Agent in Charge of the ATF's Philadelphia Field Division, Eric DeGree, expressed relief at the sentencing, noting, “This criminal is going to federal prison, where he will no longer endanger this community. Together with our state and local partners, and the United States Attorney’s Office, we continue to make Pennsylvania’s communities safer from such dangerous criminals,” according to the same press release.
