A 31-year-old convicted felon who dragged an ATF agent through a Northeast Washington gas station, then crashed his car while trying to flee with a loaded ghost gun and a young child in the back seat, has been sentenced to two years in federal prison. Dayvon Darius Marson was sentenced Friday by Chief Judge James E. Boasberg in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, after pleading guilty in April to unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
According to the Daily Voice, the encounter began around 6:15 p.m. on February 26 when Marson pulled his Toyota Avalon, with heavily tinted windows, into a Citgo gas station in the 3800 block of Minnesota Avenue NE. The Metropolitan Police Department was patrolling the area that evening alongside agents from the ATF, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations as part of a broader neighborhood sweep, per the Department of Justice. Marson could not produce a driver's license when officers approached, and a young child was seated in the back of the car.
Police spotted a half-empty bottle of tequila on the floor behind Marson's seat, the outlet's report states. When an MPD officer ordered Marson out of the vehicle, he refused. An ATF agent then attempted to physically remove him from the car — Marson refused that too, and instead drove off with the agent still holding the open driver's door, dragging the agent several feet through the gas station before crashing into another parked vehicle. Law enforcement arrested him at the scene following the crash.
What Was Hidden in the Car
Inside the Avalon, investigators recovered a loaded, brown, unserialized P90 handgun — a ghost gun with one .40-caliber round in the chamber and 12 more in the magazine, the same account notes. Investigators also found a clear bag containing 11 multicolored pills hidden in Marson's socks; field testing indicated the pills contained amphetamines, according to prosecutors. Marson was legally barred from possessing any firearm as a previously convicted felon.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the conviction is part of an ongoing mission to crack down on gun violence and protect residents and visitors in the nation's capital. The case was prosecuted under the banner of the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful initiative, which officials say supports President Trump's executive order directing federal agencies to prioritize gun offenses. Ongoing efforts tied to that push have removed more than 2,000 firearms from criminals, per the report.
A Citywide Crackdown on Untraceable Guns
The task force behind Marson's arrest has reported sweeping results since its launch under a March 2025 executive order, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which says the multi-agency effort has made over 16,000 arrests and seized nearly 2,000 illegal firearms across Washington, D.C. since its inception. Federal prosecutors have also leaned harder on local gun cases, doubling their adoption rate of D.C. Superior Court firearm cases in early 2025 and accepting 23 such cases for federal prosecution in March of that year alone, the Department of Justice has reported separately. The 3800 block of Minnesota Avenue NE sits within a Ward 7 commercial corridor that has seen stepped-up joint patrols targeting violent crime and narcotics.
Ghost guns like the P90 recovered from Marson's car are explicitly illegal in the District. Under D.C. Code § 22-4514, possessing an unserialized firearm is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison under local statute, according to Monument Legal. D.C. regulations also require anyone who self-assembles a firearm for personal use to submit an application within five days and permanently engrave a serial number combining the self-manufacturer’s first and last names, “DC,” and two to five numbers; MPD confirms that the proposed serial number has not already been registered to another firearm, per the Giffords Law Center.
A Years-Long Surge in Seizures
MPD's recoveries of untraceable ghost guns have climbed sharply in recent years, rising from 25 firearms in 2018 to 524 firearms in 2022, according to the D.C. Office of the Attorney General. That same office secured a $4 million court judgment against ghost gun manufacturer Polymer80 in August 2022, permanently banning the company from selling unserialized firearm kits to District residents, as reported by WUSA9.
Marson's sentence — two years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release — matched the exact term requested by federal prosecutors. The case began during a joint neighborhood patrol in Ward 7 and led to a felony prosecution carrying consequences well beyond the gas station parking lot where it began.
