An Ohio man with a criminal record, barred from having firearms, has been handed a 12.5-year prison sentence after police discovered him slumbering in his car clutching a loaded gun, the man, identified as 49-year-old Jermaine C. Bunn of Youngstown, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge John R. Adams, according to an announcement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio.
Details of the case reveal on Oct. 25, 2024, Youngstown police responded to a call about a driver, later confirmed to be Bunn, passed out behind the wheel in a still-running vehicle—they found Bunn asleep with a black handgun seated near the door handle, right next to him a cup holder cradling an alcoholic beverage, incidentally, Bunn's rap sheet includes convictions spanning assault and cocaine possession, dating back to 1997, 2010, and as recent as 2021, this history left him legally unfit to possess a firearm or ammunition.
The firearm in Bunn's possession, a Springfield Armory Model XDE-9, 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, was loaded at the time of his arrest; Bunn now also faces three years of supervised release following his incarceration, as outlined in the U.S. Attorney's Office statement.
The case was stitched together through collaborative work by the FBI Youngstown Field Office, the Mahoning Valley Violent Crime Task Force, and the Youngstown Police Department, with Assistant United States Attorneys Yasmine Makridis and Joseph P. Dangelo leading the prosecution and Bunn's conviction emanating from a federal jury's May verdict; the trial brought forth both court documents and evidence that painted a damning picture of Bunn's flagrant disregard for the law enwrapping him in the inevitable consequences of America's justice system.
