Former Tri-State police chief avoids prison time in ‘machine gun scheme’ - FOX19

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ADDYSTON, Ohio (FOX19) - A former Tri-State police chief won’t spend a day in prison time for his role in what federal prosecutors say was a “machine gun scheme,” according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana.

Dorian LaCourse, 66, of Milford, was sentenced Wednesday in Indianapolis to three years’ probation, including six months of home detention, on charges of conspiracy and making false statements.

US District Judge Sarah Evans Barker also ordered that LaCourse pay an $11,800 fine, an amount roughly equivalent to what authorities say he received from the gun dealers for his role in the scheme.

More than 100 illegally obtained machine guns, $2,500 rounds of ammunition and more than $6,000 in criminal proceeds seized from LaCourse’s office desk will be forfeited to the United States.

LaCourse, who used to lead the Addyston Police Department, was convicted in April of using his law enforcement position to illegally help two federally licensed firearms dealers in Indiana acquire and resell about 200 fully automatic machine guns.

The gun dealers resold the machine guns at a significant profit, court records show. In some instances, a gun dealer resold illegally acquired machine guns for five or six times the purchase price.

LaCourse pleaded guilty to three of the 17 charges in his original 2021 indictment:

• Conspiracy
• Making false statements in records maintained by a federal firearms licensee
• Making false statements to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

In exchange, federal prosecutors agreed to drop the other 14 charges.

LaCourse faced up to 15 years in prison. Federal prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 70 months (nearly 6 years) followed by two years of supervised release, according to the plea agreement.

“Law enforcement officers are sworn to protect our communities and uphold the law, and the public has a right to expect police powers are used for the public good,” United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Zachary A. Myers said. “Instead, the defendant sold his badge to facilitate a criminal machine gun trafficking conspiracy. With heartbreaking regularity, we see the carnage that criminals can inflict on our communities with weapons of war. Today’s sentence demonstrates that officers who violate the public’s trust with utter disregard for the public’s safety will be held accountable.”

Travis S. Riddle, acting special agent in charge of ATF’s Columbus Field Division, described the crime as an “egregious betrayal of the public’s trust.”

Riddle continued: “I hope that this sentence serves as an example to anyone else out there who might be tempted to betray their oath of office and their responsibility to their community.”

LaCourse abruptly resigned from the Addyston Police Department in early 2020 after village officials put him on leave amid an internal investigation.

The dealers, Johnathan Marcum, 34, of Laurel, and Christopher Petty, 58, of Lawrenceburg who is a retired Harrison police officer, already pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements.

According to court documents, LaCourse, Marcum, and Petty, illegally exploited a law enforcement exception to the federal ban on the possession or transfer of fully automatic machine guns.

As police chief of the village with just 1,000 residents and a single full-time officer, LaCourse signed multiple “demonstration letters” falsely stating the police department was interested in purchasing various types of machine guns, including military-grade weapons.

The weapons included smaller submachine guns, automatic assault rifles and belt-fed machine guns for military use.

One was an M2 .50 caliber belt-fed heavy machine gun that, according to LaCourse’s indictment, is vehicle-or ship-mounted and effective against lightly armored vehicles and low-flying aircraft.

He asked that Marcum and or Petty give the demonstration. Marcum and Petty then sent the letters to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in order to obtain the weapons, federal officials say.

LaCourse also placed direct orders for German-made machine guns that were purported to be paid for by the police department.

However, federal officials say Marcum and Petty fully funded those purchases and this was all just a way around restrictions related to these types of weapons by anyone other than police or the military.

The Addyston Police Department was never authorized to purchase any of the machine guns, the village’s attorney has told FOX19 NOW.

The Indiana gun dealers never provided any demonstrations of machine guns to the police department, according to federal prosecutors.

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