A 25-year-old Charlotte man has been sentenced to 81 months in federal prison after investigators say he was caught with a machine gun conversion device and drugs twice in the span of just 10 days — the second time while out on bond for the first arrest. Jeremiah Dashaun Reed was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.
A Traffic Stop Uncovers a Converted Handgun
According to Queen City News, Reed's case began on August 13, 2024, when Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers stopped him for a traffic violation and saw him carrying a firearm. Officers recovered a handgun that had been converted into a machine gun using a Glock switch, along with more than 300 pills of controlled substances, the outlet reported. Reed was released on bond on the state charges that followed.
He did not stay out of trouble for long. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina says the second stop came 10 days later, on August 23, 2024, when Mint Hill Police Department officers pulled over Reed's vehicle. As officers began searching the car, Reed tried to flee on foot before being apprehended, according to the Department of Justice. Mint Hill is its own incorporated municipality in eastern Mecklenburg County, with a police department that coordinates with CMPD and federal authorities on regional traffic enforcement, per WCNC.
A Second Car, Two More Guns
Inside the vehicle, officers located a firearm with an extended magazine loaded with 23 rounds under the driver's seat, and a second firearm under the front passenger seat, Queen City News reported. Additional narcotics and prescription drugs were also recovered from the car. Reed pleaded guilty in March 2026 to possession of a machine gun and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, per the outlet's reporting.
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson said Reed returned to the streets with a gun and drugs just 10 days after his initial state arrest, stressing that people who fail to change after getting caught will face prosecution in the federal system. The investigation that led to Reed's federal conviction was conducted jointly by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, CMPD, and the Mint Hill Police Department, the Department of Justice said in announcing the sentence.
How the Law Treats Conversion Switches
Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) and 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b), a machine gun conversion device — often called a Glock switch or auto-sear — is legally classified as a machine gun itself whether or not it's attached to a firearm, carrying a statutory penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison. Separately, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) imposes a mandatory minimum five-year sentence for possessing or using a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, a penalty that must be served consecutively to any underlying drug conviction, according to the Congressional Research Service — a structure that explains how Reed's 81-month term was built.
ATF testing shows that fitting a semiautomatic Glock pistol with a conversion switch lets it fire at a rate of 1,100 to 1,200 rounds per minute, enough to empty a high-capacity magazine in under three seconds. The switches work by bypassing a pistol's internal disconnector, turning a standard handgun into what amounts to a military-grade automatic weapon.
Part of a Nationwide Surge
Reed's case fits into a trend federal officials have flagged with growing urgency. The Department of Justice reported to the U.S. Sentencing Commission that the ATF recovered 570% more machine gun conversion devices nationwide in 2021 than it did in 2017, a surge that has pushed prosecutors to seek stricter outcomes for offenders caught with the devices.
Charlotte has seen several similar cases move through federal court in recent months. In May 2026, 24-year-old Shyheem Jaqun DuPont of Charlotte was sentenced to 30 months in prison after CMPD officers found a Glock 19 fitted with a switch and a 31-round magazine in his lap during a traffic stop. And in February 2026, 27-year-old Charlotte resident Jalein Young received 138 months in federal prison for selling a firearm equipped with a switch while also possessing over 6,000 fentanyl pills.
These prosecutions are coordinated under Project Safe Neighborhoods and its local initiative, Think Again, which launched in July 2022 to raise community awareness and boost reporting of illegal firearms activity in the Western District of North Carolina. Hoodline previously reported on a related case involving a 140-gun cartel arsenal uncovered in the greater Charlotte area, part of the same broader federal crackdown on illegal automatic weapons.
