Possession of Firearm by a Convicted Felon – Not Guilty

Our client, a convicted felon, went to a pawn shop in Stuart, Florida with his girlfriend to pick up a firearm that she had previously purchased at a gun show. The pawn shop owner decides to call the ATF to report our client as "suspicious", whatever that means.  So the ATF starts to do surveillance in Fort Pierce on our client because they seem to think he is the real owner of the firearms purchased at the pawn shop.  They follow a vehicle from his home that they had previously seen our client drive. Whoever was driving the vehicle was able to lose them and eventually got away on foot.  A gun was found in the abandoned vehicle with our client's DNA on it, along with the DNA of another 'unknown female'.  They also found a woman's wallet with our client's credit cards and Florida State ID in it.  So they charge our guy and never made us an offer.  They've got it out for him and want him in prison for 15 years.  Ready for Trial. In trial, we argued that despite the surveillance video at the pawn shop with him holding a gun, the surveillance of our client in the vehicle, the DNA on the gun, and the credit cards and Florida ID found in the vehicle, that the State could not rule out the possibility that it was someone else in that vehicle and that "secondary transfer" accounted for our client's DNA on that firearm.  After about 90 minutes of deliberation, our client was found Not Guilty.