Lizella college student gets prison time for 3D printing guns
A Lizella man who was studying at Central Georgia Technical College in Warner Robins was ordered Tuesday to serve nearly six years in prison for 3D printing an unregistered machine gun.
Jaden Michael-William Pope was sentenced in federal court by Judge Marc Treadwell Tuesday after pleading guilty to manufacturing an unregistered machine gun earlier this year.
An investigation into Pope started in September 2023 after he told Crawford County Sheriff’s Office he had stolen a gun from a vehicle. Investigators discovered he had been manufacturing weapons, including silencers, switches, machine guns and short-barreled rifles, in his bedroom.
Even though he said he dreamed of being a “gunsman,” he said Tuesday in court that he “should’ve known better.”
“I was wrong,” Pope said. “I should be held criminally liable.”
Treadwell sentenced him on Tuesday morning to serve five years and ten months in prison, which will allow him to receive treatment for substance abuse and offer a vocational program for him.
Through continued substance abuse treatment, therapy and the vocational program that would keep him busy while in prison, Pope told Treadwell that he wanted to be a “productive member of society.”
What agents found during the investigation
Deputies searched Pope’s phone during an investigation after he was found to have a stolen gun. Investigators uncovered pictures of firearms and silencers that Pope had built, alongside screenshots from a website called Yeggi, which offers 3D-printed templates of fully automatic AR-15 fully rifles, according to court records.
Later in September 2023, an anonymous source reached out to law enforcement claiming Pope had been manufacturing firearms, including silencers, in his bedroom, according to court documents. They had also seen Pope “shoot a firearm with a manufactured silencer and noted that the silencer significantly diminished the sound,” according to court documents.
It prompted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate.
The agent with the ATF noticed that, in Pope’s Facebook profile, he had posted pictures of himself with the firearms he built, including a Glock handgun with a “switch” that allows him to fire multiple rounds while pulling the trigger once, court documents show. The ATF agent also noticed Pope did not have the weapons registered with the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
The ATF agent executed a search warrant in December 2023 at Pope’s Lizella home and found four 3D printers, three computers, machine guns, silencers and a rifle with a 5-inch barrel. They also found the firearm he had stolen, which was a Taurus .45-caliber pistol.
Investigators also found black and tan pieces of 3D-printed polymer material that qualified as machine guns per federal law, because they were “designed and intended solely and exclusively for use in converting a weapon into a machine gun,” court records show. The ATF also determined that nine 3D-printed cylindrical devices qualified as silencers under federal law.
Agents also found diagrams and instructions for building guns, notes relating to their production, scrap parts,, failed 3D prints and residue, according to court documents. They also found “g-codes,” a programming code that tells the computer to 3D print the machine guns, silencers and a short-barreled rifle.
They also found methamphetamine hidden within a USB drive, court records say.
