Indictments charge 2 with possession of machine gun

CHARLOTTE — Federal grand jurors have returned indictments against two men in cases involving the possession of machine gun conversion devices.

Commonly known as an “auto sear” or “Glock switch,” the illegal device enables a conventional semiautomatic pistol to function as a fully automatic firearm, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina says. Federal law prohibits the possession of a machine gun, which includes a converted firearm itself or a device designed or intended to convert one into a machine gun. The conversion device itself is illegal under federal law and is classified as a machine gun even if it is not mounted on a firearm.

Trevaris Devar Kennedy, 21, of Statesville, was arrested Monday and charged with possession of a machine gun and possession of a firearm by a felon. The indictment says that on Dec. 22, 2023, in Iredell County, he knowingly had a device intended to convert a semiautomatic handgun into a machine gun and that he illegally had two semiautomatic pistols after having been convicted of a crime punishable by at least a year in prison.

In the second case, Tiquavion Davonta Ervin, 21, of Charlotte, is awaiting transfer to North Carolina after having been taken into federal custody in South Carolina. He is charged with possession of a machine gun, in this case a 9 mm pistol that had an auto sear.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated both cases along with the Statesville Police Department in Kennedy’s and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department in Ervin’s. Assistant U.S. Attorney Shavonn Bennette is prosecuting Kennedy’s case, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney William Wiseman is prosecuting Ervin’s.