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3 indicted in crackdown on illegal guns
Friday, April 14, 2000 By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
On Dec. 8, while U.S. Attorney Harry Litman was holding a press conference to announce the indictments of five men on charges of dealing in illegal guns, federal agents were watching a young woman buy three pistols at a Neville Island gun shop.
The woman, identified as Chekesha Fincher of Homewood, is the latest Pittsburgh area gun buyer to be swept up by Operation Target, a federal, state and local program to combat gun violence.
Fincher, 23, was indicted this week by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on a charge of falsifying a firearms purchase application.
Her indictment was one of three handed up in the last two weeks involving gun charges investigated under Operation Target, which is designed to crack down on illegal possession of guns by felons and prosecute people who buy guns legally and then give them to someone who isn't allowed to own one.
That's what Fincher was doing, according to the indictment, when she bought three 9 mm handguns at Island Firearms after submitting an application that falsely indicated she was the true buyer. She could face up to 10 years in prison.
The other indictments involved separate cases in which men who had felony convictions were caught with guns, according to the U.S. attorney.
On Wednesday, the grand jury indicted Donald G. Jackman Jr., 43, of Butler, in connection with an FBI raid on his house in March that turned up an arsenal, including assault rifles, homemade bombs, Kevlar body armor and manuals for making booby traps and explosives.
Jackman has three prior felony convictions in North Carolina for drug trafficking and could face up to 25 years in prison.
On Tuesday, another convicted felon was arrested on charges of possession of firearms following an eight-month investigation that resulted in an indictment last week. Agents from Operation Target arrested Thomas Lynn Anderson, 40, of Clarion, at his job at a metal fabricating business in Clarion.
According to the April 5 indictment, Anderson was in possession of numerous shotguns, pistols and rifles on Sept. 12 and March 1. In 1979, he was convicted of robbery.
He was arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Robert Mitchell and released on a $10,000 bond pending trial. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
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