A 28-year-old Atlanta man will spend the next 15 years in federal prison after a Fulton County traffic stop turned up hundreds of fentanyl pills, more than $10,000 in cash, and a handgun illegally converted into a machine gun. Reginald Pierce also tried to run from investigators during that stop and tackled a Fulton County Sheriff's Office investigator before he was taken into custody.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee formally sentenced Pierce to 15 years in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release on July 30, according to CBS News. The sentencing capped a case that began on May 30, 2023, when Pierce was stopped as a passenger in a vehicle in Fulton County, as reported by WSB-TV. Both the ATF and the Fulton County Sheriff's Office were involved in investigating Pierce.
Investigators recovered 469 fentanyl pills, methamphetamine pills, oxycodone pills, and $10,020 in cash in and near the vehicle, per the station's report. They also found an illegally converted fully automatic pistol in Pierce's pants pocket. Pierce attempted to flee the stop and tackled a sheriff's office investigator before he was taken down and arrested, the outlet reported.
A Handgun Turned Machine Gun
The pistol pulled from Pierce's pocket had been fitted with a conversion device, sometimes called a Glock switch, that allows a standard semi-automatic handgun to fire continuously with a single trigger pull. According to the ATF, such devices can push a converted weapon to discharge roughly 15 rounds in two seconds, and they are legally classified as machine guns under the National Firearms Act even before they are attached to a firearm. Benjamin Gibbons, special agent in charge of the ATF's Atlanta Field Division, said machine gun conversion devices transform firearms into exceptionally dangerous weapons that have no place in communities, per the same account.
Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), unlawful possession or transfer of a machine gun carries a statutory maximum of 10 years in federal prison. Pierce also faced exposure under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which bars anyone with a prior felony conviction from possessing firearms or ammunition and allows for prison terms of up to 15 years per violation. Pierce had prior convictions for armed robbery and gang-related aggravated assault involving the stabbing of five victims, which made his possession of any gun a federal offense.
Ballistics Linked the Gun to an Unsolved Shooting
Beyond the drug and weapons charges, forensic evidence connected Pierce's converted handgun to violence that predated his arrest. NIBIN intelligence linked the fully automatic handgun to a drive-by shooting in East Point, Georgia, on May 23, 2023, just days before Pierce's traffic stop. The ATF's National Integrated Ballistic Information Network digitizes toolmarks on fired cartridge casings to correlate ballistic evidence across jurisdictions, and the system generated more than 217,000 investigative leads nationwide in fiscal year 2024 alone.
Pierce pleaded guilty to all three federal counts on March 17, in a case led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren E. Renaud, according to 11Alive. He entered guilty pleas to one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, one count of unlawful possession of a machine gun, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, avoiding a trial altogether.
Officials Emphasize Task Force Collaboration
U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg, who leads the Northern District of Georgia office covering 46 counties and more than 6 million residents across North Georgia, described Pierce as a violent repeat offender who trafficked lethal fentanyl while armed with a machine gun. Hertzberg said the sentence equals more than half of Pierce's lifetime thus far.
Fulton County Sheriff Patrick “Pat” Labat said apprehending dangerous criminals is a vital part of his office's mission and emphasized the importance of collaboration between local and federal law enforcement agencies in cases like this one.
A Local Fentanyl Crisis Behind the Case
The case lands against a backdrop of a persistent fentanyl crisis in Fulton County and across Georgia. Fulton County recorded 230 opioid-involved overdose deaths in 2023, with roughly 210 of those deaths, or 90 percent, involving synthetic fentanyl, according to North Atlanta Behavioral Health. Statewide, Georgia recorded 2,029 total drug overdose deaths in 2024, an age-adjusted mortality rate of 18.1 deaths per 100,000 residents and a 38 percent increase over 2019 levels, per USAFacts.
Georgia Department of Public Health data cited by the North Georgia Health District shows fentanyl-involved overdose deaths across the state surged by more than 230 percent between 2019 and 2021, with the drug commonly pressed into counterfeit prescription pills. Pierce's sentence, paired with the ballistic link to the East Point shooting, illustrates how a single traffic stop can pull together threads of drug trafficking, illegal weapons, and unsolved gun violence across Metro Atlanta.
