DOWNTOWN — A man who prosecutors said "directly contributed to the cycle of violence" in Chicago by helping run guns from Indiana into the city has been sentenced to 3 years and 1 months in prison.
Dozens of weapons bought at gun shows and other vendors by Winston "Worm" Geralds, 25, were sold by middlemen in the Greater Grand Crossing and Chinatown neighborhoods in 2012, federal prosecutors said.
"Unbeknownst to Geralds" one buyer was cooperating with law enforcement officers, prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.
Geralds accompanied David "Big Dave" Lewisbey, 25, a former University of Kansas football player, to Indiana to buy guns on numerous occasions in 2010, the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Illinois has said.
Lewisby, of suburban South Holland, was described by the feds as "the leader of the Indiana-to-Illinois gun trafficking ring." Lewisbey, a Thornton Township High School grad, has been convicted and sentenced to 3½ years in prison. During his trial, prosecutors said he sometimes used coded messages on Facebook to arrange gun sales.
Guns sold by the ring, described in a Tribune story exploring on how illegal guns get into the city, were used in a double-shooting, were found in a gang member's house, and were discovered being carried by two suspected gang members outside a South Side elementary school.
Geralds is the son of a longtime Cook County Sheriff's police officer, the Tribune said.
Geralds was sentenced by federal Judge John Z. Lee. In a sentencing memorandum, assistant U.S. Attorneys Bethany K. Biesenthal and Christopher V. Parente wrote that "by directly assisting in the supply of firearms to this city, [Geralds] very directly contributed to the cycle of gun violence."
Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has often railed against Illegal guns coming into the city from suburban gun shops and from Indiana and has called for tougher gun laws.
So far this year, Chicago police have recovered more than 5,400 illegal guns in the city and made 2,242 gun-related arrests.
"The sentencing guidelines have it that three out of four individuals that we arrest for gun possession are back on the street almost immediately," he told ABC7.
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