Two plead guilty to gun store burglary
| DANVILLE, Va. – A pair of men from the Carolinas, who in the pre-dawn hours of a September morning in 2022 burglarized a Patrick County gun store, pled guilty last week in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
Bradley Wayne McCraw, 43, of Gaffney, S.C., and Justin Darrell Whitaker, 31, of Mooresville, N.C., each pled guilty to one count of stealing firearms from a federal firearms licensee and aiding and abetting in the same, and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. According to court documents, in September 2022, McCraw and Whitaker stole a truck, attached a chain from it to the back door of the Rabbit Ridge Gun Shop and Range, and yanked it open. Surveillance video captured them wearing masks and entering the store where they proceeded to steal more than a dozen firearms, including shotguns, rifles, and pistols. Both McCraw and Whitaker entered into plea agreements with the government in which the defendants would be sentenced to a range between 100 to 150 months in prison. United States Attorney Christopher R. Kavanaugh and Craig B. Kailimai, Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, made the announcement. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case with assistance from the Patrick County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriffs’ Offices in Cherokee County, South Carolina, Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Cleveland County, North Carolina also assisted with the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin B. Johnson is prosecuting the case. |