Source: Office of United States Attorneys
MIAMI – After a three-day bifurcated trial, a Miami federal jury found Nathaniel Martin, 45, guilty of possession of a firearm and ammunition as a convicted felon. Later that same day, the jury found that Martin qualified as an Armed Career Criminal based on his criminal history, including prior convictions for robbery, cocaine trafficking, and armed robbery.
Based on the evidence at trial, police responded to a market in Miami Gardens based on a tip that a person of interest in an open investigation was camped out in the alley behind that market. When police arrived, they observed Martin sitting in a chair at the end of the alley rifling through a bookbag. Surveillance footage from the interior and exterior of the market showed Martin handling the bookbag, a plastic bag, and other belongings in and around the market. Police later recovered the bookbag, which contained fourteen rounds of live ammunition, and the plastic bag, which contained two semiautomatic pistols and additional ammunition.
Additional evidence at trial included text messages from the day of the arrest in which Martin asked if he could hide his guns under a friend’s bed, DNA evidence for each of the firearms, and recorded jail calls from the day of the arrest in which Martin lamented that police had recovered “the weapons.”
According to other filings in the case, one of the pistols recovered from Martin returned ballistic matches to shell casings recovered from a December 2023 shooting in Miami Gardens and a January 13, 2024 homicide in Miami Gardens.
U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez presided over the trial. Martin faces a mandatory minimum sentence of fifteen years of imprisonment, and a maximum term of imprisonment up to life. The sentencing hearing has been set for May 2, 2025. Judge Martinez will sentence Martin after a review of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
U.S. Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida and Acting Special Agent in Charge John F. Dion, Jr. of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), Miami Field Division, announced the verdicts.
The ATF and the Miami Gardens Police Department investigated this case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sterling M. Paulson and Altanese Phenelus are prosecuting the case.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce gun violence and other violent crime, and to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. On May 26, 2021, the Department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results. For more information about Project Safe Neighborhoods, please visit Justice.gov/PSN.
You may find a copy of this press release (and any updates) on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov, under case number 24-cr- 20065.
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