Convicted Felon Sentenced to Seven and a Half Years in Prison for Stealing Firearms from Cargo Train

CHICAGO — A federal judge today sentenced a convicted felon to seven and a half years in prison in connection with the theft of more than a hundred firearms from a cargo train on the South Side of Chicago.

On April 12, 2015, ALEXANDER PEEBLES and seven other men burglarized the cargo train while it was parked in a railyard in Chicago’s Avalon Park neighborhood.  The cargo train was en route from a Ruger factory in New Hampshire to Spokane, Wash.  The thieves broke locks on a train car and spent over four hours unloading approximately 104 firearms, which they transported to a stash house in the city’s Englewood neighborhood. 

To date, law enforcement has recovered 33 of the stolen firearms at various locations, including 17 at crime scenes in Chicago and the surrounding area. 

All eleven defendants charged in the case have now been sentenced.  The other defendants are: FREDERICK LEWIS (sentenced to 15 years in prison); TERRY WALKER (12 and a half years in prison); ANDREW SHELTON (ten years in prison); PATRICK EDWARDS (eleven years in prison); NATHAN DRIGGERS (eight years in prison); DANDRE MOODY (seven years and nine months in prison); WARREN GATES (five years and three months in prison); ELGIN LIPSCOMB (five years in prison); MARCEL TURNER (four years in prison); and LORI SHELTON (three years of probation).

Peebles, 47, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in 2016 to one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon, and one count of possession of a stolen firearm.  U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. imposed the 90-month sentence in federal court in Chicago.

The sentencing was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Celinez Nunez, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  The Chicago Police Department and the Norfolk Southern Railroad Police Department provided valuable assistance.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher V. Parente.