JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced that Gregory Austin Eward, 25, of Live Oak, had been sentenced to two years in federal prison for conspiracy to possess and transfer unregistered firearm silencers. Eward pleaded guilty on Feb. 27, 2023.
According to the DOJ, the plea agreement states that Eward and his father, Dustin, who is also a co-defendant, operated Eward Research Inc., a company that marketed and sold firearm silencers (also known as suppressors) over the internet. In lightly coded language, the DOJ says their website, ewardresearch.com, advertised the sale of combinations of parts designed and intended for use in assembling firearm silencers -- never using the term “silencer,” but referring to individual components as “toobz,” threaded “end caps,” “spacers,” and “spools.”
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Sales could be completed with either cash or cryptocurrency, the DOJ wrote. The website included photographs of the items for sale, which were identifiable as components of firearms silencers.
In January and again in February 2022, an undercover ATF Special Agent ordered three silencers from the Ewards, paying for them with cryptocurrency. Surveillance video from a post office showed Gregory Eward mailing one of the parcels containing silencers that the agent eventually received.
The devices were examined by an ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer and firearms expert who concluded that the devices were consistent in design and construction with firearms silencers and he recognized the devices to be firearms silencers. These silencers were not registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, as required by federal law.
At the time of his arrest, on May 9, 2022, Gregory Eward had a Glock-type handgun on the back seat of the car. The pistol had no serial number and was loaded. Agents also located three rifle bump-stocks in the car’s open trunk. These devices also had no serial numbers.
On May 10, 2022, FBI and ATF Special Agents executed a search warrant at the Ewards’ home. They located approximately 105 firearms, over 12,000 rounds of ammunition, and 35 assembled firearms silencers. There was also a sufficient quantity of parts (including metallic tubes, baffles, and threaded endcaps), which were designed or redesigned, and intended for use in assembling or fabricating more than 300 additional firearm silencers.
Photo Gallery: Inside the home of suspects Dustin and Greg Eward
Dustin Eward is scheduled for trial in October 2023. According to the DOJ, he is charged by indictment with conspiracy to possess and distribute unregistered silencers, possession of unregistered silencers, transfer of unregistered silencers, and threatening to assault and murder a federal law enforcement officer.
An indictment is a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.