DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF) – The man who sold Malik Faisal Akram the gun he used to kidnap hostages in a Colleyville synagogue was sentenced on Monday to nearly eight years in prison for a firearm crime, announced United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
33-year-old Henry “Michael” Dwight Williams was charged via criminal complaint in January and indicted the following month. He pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in June and was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey to 95 months in federal prison.
“This defendant, a convicted felon, had no business carrying – much less buying and selling – firearms. Whether he suspected his buyer would use the gun to menace a community of faith is legally irrelevant: In the U.S., convicted felons cannot possess firearms,” said U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham. “The Justice Department is committed to prosecuting those who violate our nation’s federal firearm laws, which are designed to keep guns from falling into the hands of dangerous offenders. We are grateful to the FBI, which sprang into action as soon as the synagogue hostage crisis began, and to the agents who worked tirelessly to track the weapon from Akram to the defendant.”
According to the complaint, Williams – a felon previously convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted possession of a controlled substance – sold Akram a semiautomatic Taurus G2C pistol on January 13. In plea papers, Williams admitted to possession of that firearm despite his prior conviction. According to the complaint, on January 15, agents recovered the pistol from Colleyville’s Congregation Beth Israel synagogue, where Akram had held four individuals hostage for several hours before he was fatally shot by federal law enforcement.
As part of its intensive investigation into the hostage taking, the FBI tied Williams to Akram through an analysis of Akram’s cellphone records, which showed the pair exchanged a series of calls from January 11 through January 13. When agents first interviewed Williams on Jan. 16, Williams stated that he recalled meeting a man with a British accent, but that he could not recall the man’s name. Agents interviewed the defendant again on January 24, after he was arrested on an outstanding state warrant. After viewing a photo of Akram, Williams confirmed he sold Akram the handgun at an intersection in South Dallas. Analysis of both men’s cellphone records showed that the two phones were in close proximity on January 13.
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