St. Clair County Felon Sentenced to 51 Months on Gun Charges

ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Wednesday sentenced a convicted felon from Cahokia Heights, Illinois to 51 months in prison for possessing a pistol converted into a machine gun at a St. Louis, Missouri hotel.

On Dec. 9, 2021, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officers caught Henry Miller with a 9mm Glock pistol that had been modified with a device, sometimes referred to as a Glock “switch,” that converted it into a fully automatic weapon. The Glock had a 29-round extended magazine. A 17-round magazine was also in the satchel.

Police had been summoned to the hotel after Miller rented a room using a stranger’s credit card information. Later in the day, police found him in the lobby with a blue satchel containing the Glock and a backpack that contained 300 grams of marijuana, a digital scale, $2,889 in cash and another conversion device. The Glock conversion device alone, even if not attached to a weapon, is a machine gun under federal law. There has been a dangerous increase in the devices being used and found in the St. Louis area and around the country.

Miller later admitted knowing that the Glock had been modified and admitted testing it to see if it worked.

Miller, 33, pleaded guilty in February to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of one or more machine guns.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Szczucinski is prosecuting the case.