NC felon sold assault rifle parts, 100 machine-gun kits on Snapchat, feds say
A 21-year-old Cabarrus County man illegally sold drugs, assault-rifle parts and more than 100 machine-gun conversion kits on Snapchat, federal prosecutors said.
Herbert Brooks Humphries III was sentenced in federal court in Greensboro Friday to 11 years and two months in prison, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
Humphries was convicted of two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon and a count each of unlawful possession of an unregistered firearm and distribution of cocaine hydrochloride, prosecutors said.
Humphries was barred from having any firearms because he was a felon at the time of his arrest, according to court documents. He had multiple felony convictions in Union County, including for drug distribution, according to the news release.
Cabarrus County sheriff’s investigators were the first to learn about the Snapchat account where Humphries advertised drugs and the firearms parts for sale, court records show.
Machine-gun conversion kits are designed for use in AR-15 type rifles, prosecutors said.
The kits “are a specially designed piece of metal that can be inserted into specific semiautomatic firearms to allow them to function as fully automatic firearms,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice news release.
In 2020, an undercover Cabarrus County sheriff’s officer bought cocaine and marijuana, a Remington rifle and more than 100 machine-gun conversion kits from Humphries, court records show.
Humphries displayed a .38 caliber Ruger handgun when he met the officer. Investigators later learned the gun was reported stolen in Monroe.
In a statement Friday, a federal agent called Humphries’ actions “a blatant disregard of our laws and our safety.”
“We are grateful that he will no longer be a danger to the community,” Bennie Mims, a federal Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms special agent in charge said in the statement.
This story was originally published June 25, 2022 at 11:55 AM.