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Heat Packing Florida Man Acquitted Of Packing Heat
By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 24, 2011
Modified Feb 24, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Feb 24, 2011
Modified Feb 24, 2011
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Our mayor may be against guns, and New York may have some very strict anti-gun laws, but apparently our fellow New Yorkers at least have some common sense when it comes to enforcing them. A jury today acquitted 29-year-old Floridian Jonathan Ryan in a criminal weapons possession case involving a 9mm pistol he had in his truck's glove compartment when he drove up to New York last February to help his girlfriend move.
Confused by our traffic laws, Ryan was pulled over after making a right on red when police found the gun in his glove compartment. A magazine with seven bullets to the Skyy CPX-1 was on the other side of the glove box, which is considered a loaded weapon in New York (though totally legal in Florida, where the gun was registered). If he had been convicted Ryan would have faced up to three-and-a-half years in jail. But luckily for Ryan a jury found him innocent after a half-an-hour of deliberations.
And Ryan, who spent $30,000 defending himself, seems to be taking the whole ordeal in stride. "I have no bitterness at all, New York City is a beautiful city," he said outside court.
DA Cy Vance, meanwhile, still thinks Ryan was in the wrong (which, even if he didn't mean to be, he clearly was). After the verdict Vance said that "we respect the jury’s verdict in this case, of course, and thank them for their service. But we will continue to protect our community from those who illegally possess loaded guns in Manhattan. Any possession of a loaded firearm in this metropolitan area has the potential for deadly consequences, to our residents and visitors alike."
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Garth Johnston
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