Hardeeville man indicted on 10 counts of illegal gun sales by federal grand jury
A Hardeeville man faces 10 charges in a federal indictment this week for illegal gun sales after the firearms he is accused of selling were later recovered by police after Lowcountry shootings or traffic stops, court documents show.
A federal grand jury indicted Edwin Carl Hamilton, 41, of Hardeeville on Tuesday on one count of conspiracy, eight counts of knowingly making false statements with firearm purchases, and one count of dealing firearms without a license.
Hamilton was arrested Thursday and appointed a public defender at his arraignment at the federal courthouse in Charleston, where he pleaded not guilty.
The charges stem from at least eight gun sales where Hamilton is accused of buying pistols and rifles from 2019 to 2020, the indictment said. He mostly purchased them from the Palmetto State Armory in Ridgeland, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ list of licensed firearm dealers.
He would buy them legally from the armory and then re-sell them to others, the charges say.
The guns found by police after shootings, traffics stops and search warrants include:
▪ A Ruger .380 caliber automatic pistol recovered by the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 10, 2020.
▪ Two FN 5.7 caliber pistols recovered by the Brookhaven Police Department in Georgia in a traffic stop of an indicted co-defendant on May 13, 2020.
▪ Two PSA (Palmetto State Armory) PA-15 rifles recovered after a Drug Enforcement Administration search of a “stash house” associated with the co-defendant.
An ATF investigator, along with 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office investigator Dylan Hightower — who cooperates with the agency on gun investigations — interviewed Hamilton on July 22, according to a search warrant.
“[Hamilton] stated that most of the firearms he purchased were for the purpose of reselling them for a profit,” the document says. “He charged them approximately $1,800.00 per firearm, often resulting in a 100% profit margin.”
He said he usually wrote up a bill of sale, but sometimes the documents were “fabricated because the listed purchaser was not the actual person to whom he sold the firearms.”
Hamilton said he has a few personal items for his own protection that are not for sale.
Records obtained by the investigators through the federal licensing system indicated Hamilton had purchased 123 guns since 2009 and approximately 22 have been recovered and entered into a tracking database by law enforcement.
A $50,000 bond was set by Magistrate Judge Mary Gordon Baker on Thursday.
