New cooperation between Cincinnati police and federal weapons agents means federal prison time for more local criminals who use guns.

        It used to be rare that someone arrested by Cincinnati police on gun charges went to federal court.

FEDERAL TIME

There's no flat formula that dictates what prison time a gun offender gets in the federal system, but it often winds up being longer than convictions under state laws. Sentences can vary depending on a suspect's prior record.     These are among the possible federal penalties for gun crimes:     • Up to five years: For altering a gun's serial number; having or firing a gun in a school zone.     • Five years minimum: For using, brandishing or carrying a firearm in a way designed to further or carry out a drug-trafficking crime or a federal crime of violence.     • Up to 10 years: For giving or selling a handgun to someone under 18 who you knew intended to carry, possess or discharge the handgun or otherwise use the handgun or ammunition during a violent crime; for stealing guns or having anything to do with guns you knew were stolen.     • At least 30 years: For having a gun during a second violent crime or drug-trafficking offense.    Source: U.S. Department of Justice.

        But earlier this year, officials from Cincinnati Police, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and county and federal prosecutors agreed to work together more closely to address escalating violence in the city.

        Federal prosecution doesn't always offer more time behind bars, but it can, depending on a variety of factors, including whether the defendant has a past record of violence and whether drugs were involved. But when a case does meet those requirements, the defendant generally is less likely to get out on bond and can be sent out of state to serve time.

        In the first case under the new cooperative system, Christopher Godby of Madisonville was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to illegally acquiring 11 guns.

        Mr. Godby enlisted other people to buy guns for him because a previous felony conviction disqualified him from buying them himself. Police said the 34-year-old resold the guns on the street, including the one a teen-ager used to shoot 2-year-old Devonte Ross in a highly publicized Over-the-Rhine case last July.

        Mr. Godby likely would have faced a significantly shorter sentence in the state system, perhaps 18 months, said Cincinnati Police Lt. Steve Kramer. And he possibly would have been able to make a plea bargain, which federal prosecutors are opposed to under the new program.

        “Now, these people are going to jail for a long, long time,” Lt. Kramer said. “If people on the street get the idea that if they bring a gun, they're going to do federal time, we hope they decide not to bring the gun.”
       

Called Project Disarm

        The local-federal cooperation, called Project Disarm, is similar to Project Exile in Richmond, Va.

        Richmond officials credit the project for helping reverse that city's homicide rate because gun criminals got longer sentences, less access to bonds and were sent out of state to serve their terms.

        The program started in 1997, the year 140 people were killed in Richmond. In 1998, the number of gun killings dropped to 78. Armed robberies declined 30 percent. Homicides dropped another 21 percent in 1999. Defendants are sentenced to an average of 56 months.

        Locally, 208 cases have been reviewed so far for possible federal prosecution, said Chris Tardio, agent-in-charge of the ATF's Cincinnati office.

        Of those, he said, 12 are in various stages of federal prosecution, three more await a prosecutor's decision and officers are researching another 12 to present to the U.S. attorney's office.

        The program dovetails with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's promise that his administration would work harder on prosecuting gun crimes, including hiring more prosecutors to pursue people who buy guns illegally.

        “It's just a matter that these cases had never been identified to the federal system before,” Mr. Tardio said. “It's a major cooperative effort that has not been undertaken in Cincinnati before.”

        Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen said he wants to talk with Greg Lockhart, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, to see if there's a way to take even more cases.

        And the team is working on getting a federal grant to publicize its efforts from President Bush's crime-reduction plan, Project Safe Neighborhoods.

        The campaign would stress that authorities need community help in finding illegal guns.

        “If they don't tell us who has the guns, we don't find out until they're used,” said Tim Oakley, the assistant U.S. attorney who handles the prosecutions. “Then it's too late.”

        A similar PR campaign in Colorado in 2000 featured O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran saying a good attorney could get a suspect off — unless that suspect was caught with a gun.

        Gun confiscations are on the rise in Cincinnati. The number hovered around 900 per year for the past several years, but might top 1,200 this year, Lt. Kramer said.

        Among the other locals currently awaiting federal trial:

        • Troy Allbecker, 26, of Oakley, who is charged with being a felon in possession of an unregistered firearm. He was arrested in January by Cincinnati Police District 2's Violent Crimes Squad after a teen-ager to whom he was trying to sell a sawed-off shotgun fired the gun at another teen, causing severe injuries.

        • Dwight Plair, awaiting trial on accusations of being an “armed career criminal,” faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years because he was in possession of guns and has three prior convictions for violent crimes, Mr. Oakley said.

        When arrested in June 2001, Mr. Plair was found with eight rifles and semiautomatic handguns, plus more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition. He had been convicted in 1968 of shooting at a Cincinnati police officer.
       
       

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