Lansing man convicted of selling ‘machine guns’

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – A 22-year-old Lansing man will spend 37 months in federal prison and two years of supervised release for owning and selling “machine guns” in the Lansing area.

Jaquan Foreman was sentenced Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan under a plea deal with the federal government, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Mark Totten told 6 News.

“Foreman owned and sold machine gun conversion devices (MCDs), small devices – also called “switches,” “buttons” or “auto-sears” – that quickly converted a semi-automatic firearm into a machine gun, capable of firing hundreds of firearms rounds for a minute with a single pull of the trigger,” the US Attorney’s Office said in a press release.

Image courtesy of the US Attorney’s Office. Sentencing memorandum filed in the United States Federal District Court for the Western District of Michigan. (WLNS)

A”machine gun”, written as one word, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is “any weapon that fires, is designed to fire, or can be easily restored to fire more than one shot automatically without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”

A sentencing memo in the press release outlines Foreman’s involvement in gun violence in the greater Lansing community as follows:

A feud between the Spin Back Gang (“SBG”) and Money Bound Mafia (“MFM”) resulted in numerous shootings and murders in the Lansing area, totaling approximately 81 violent incidents. Investigators identified suspect as a member of the SBG and, while examining the cellphones of other federal suspects, discovered that he had provided machine gun conversion equipment, commonly referred to as “switches” or “buttons.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Roth’s sentencing memo on Jaquan Foreman

Foreman was arrested in November 2023 on open warrants, the sentencing memo said. When a search warrant was served on his home, police discovered:

• a silver machine gun conversion device
• a Ruger LC9 pistol
• a loaded 17-round Glock magazine
• a loaded 56M Tactical 30-round magazine
• an empty Glock magazine with 30 rounds
• an empty 17-round Glock magazine
• an empty six-round Amended2 magazine
• a Glock pistol barrel

Roth noted in the memo, “Investigators reviewed defendant’s phone and found numerous photographs and videos of defendant with weapons equipped with machine gun conversion devices.”

The arrest of Valentino Wallace, 22, of Lansing, led police to Foreman, the memo said.

“With this case I am sending a very clear message: if you own a machine gun
conversion device and fueling violence in your community, you are a target for the federal government
prosecution,” U.S. Attorney Mark Totten announced in the press release about Foreman’s sentencing. “The devastation that machine guns can cause is terrible. While violent crime rates have declined, the proliferation of machine guns is a growing threat that we are addressing head-on.”

In the U.S. Attorney’s Office press release, Lansing Police Chief Robert Backus confirmed that gun violence would be pursued in Lansing.

“Anyone who contributes to the gun violence in the city of Lansing will be the target of all violence
resources available to the Lansing Police Department,” Backus said. “This includes our violent crime initiative partners, including local, state and federal agencies.”