An aspiring rapper – who brags about guns in his music and has a prior weapons conviction – was arrested and ordered held without bail after he left a retrofitted machine gun in an Uber Thursday, prosecutors allege. (Read More Here).
Investigators who examined and field tested the firearm later learned that it was modified with a switch device that allowed it to function like a machine gun, firing more than one round with a single trigger pull. Prosecutors said the gun has “the capability of firing until the trigger is lifted.”
Officers also determined that the gun, had one round in the chamber and nine rounds in the magazine. Officials said the gun was manufactured outside New York State.
“The defendant — a convicted felon —carried a loaded pistol affixed with a switch device, rendering the gun to be a machine gun,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Schuman in a note to a federal judge asking that Dukes be detained. “The defendant poses a danger to the community based on his possession of a particularly dangerous firearm.”
He already has several felony and misdemeanor convictions, including robbery, battery and a firearm discharge. At 16, the Chicago native was sentenced to five years in a juvenile detention center.
Dukes has also seen the other end of the gun, authorities said. He reportedly survived a 2015 shooting during which he was wounded in the chest. He was arrested on gun charges while he was still in the hospital.
“The crimes charged in this case are extremely serious and confirm that [Dukes] is a danger to the community,” Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney Rebecca Schuman wrote in the court papers. “For one, [Dukes] possessed a particularly deadly weapon that had been converted from a handgun capable of shooting just one bullet each time the trigger is squeezed to having the capability of firing until the trigger is lifted.”
Schuman added that even though Dukes has multiple prior arrests and a weapons possession conviction, “he has not been deterred from such conduct.”
Dukes is charged with possession of a machine gun and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on both counts.
Brooklyn federal court Judge Ramon Reyes Jr. Friday ordered Dukes to be held without bail.
The Uber driver, “noticed that [Dukes] was holding a firearm,” and that after he was dropped off left the weapon in the car, prosecutors alleged in court papers seeking to have Dukes held without bail.
The driver called police to report the gun that was left behind and later helped them identify Dukes, prosecutors say.
The gun Dukes was carrying was a Glock 22.40 caliber pistol that had a “switch” device attached enabling it for rapid fire – like a machine gun, prosecutors claim.
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