Maryland Criminal Attorney Blog
This week, the United States Attorney’s Office in the District of Maryland dismissed the five-count indictment that has been pending since early April 2023 against Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins. Jenkins is currently serving his fifth term as the elected sheriff of Frederick County. The dismissal was “with prejudice” – a resounding end to the prosecution. This dismissal followed the complete acquittal by a jury of Jenkins’ co-defendant, Robert Krop, owner of The Machine Gun Nest on October 22, 2024. These two men, who were alleged to have conspired to violate ATF regulations between August 2015 and May 2022, barely knew each other.
Read the Baltimore Banner’s reporting here
Jenkins’ nightmare started in May 2022, when three ATF agents dropped in to interview him – unexpectedly and while surreptitiously recording the hour-long conversation with the Sheriff. The agents demanded to see the Sheriff who was out of the office at the time. They were rude and unprofessional towards the staff of the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff returned to the office, and while under no obligation to speak with the agents, answered all their questions. He had nothing to hide and had no idea why the agents were there.
The agents explained that the ATF was investigating smalltown police chiefs and sheriffs across the country who were taking kick-backs from gun dealers in return for letters on law enforcement letterhead requesting demonstrations of highly restricted machine guns, permitting the gun dealers to be able to obtain the guns and earn income by renting them to members of the public to be used on the dealer’s gun range. The crime was that the law enforcement agencies never had any real interest in purchasing machine guns but wrote the letters in return for cash ($1,000 -2,000 per letter), and for a percentage of the rental income of each machine gun. To convict a Sheriff or police chief of this crime, the government had to prove that the chief knew writing the letters was a crime. In those cases across the country, when kickbacks and percentages are being paid, the required proof of criminal intent is satisfied.
In the year following the interview prior to the return of the indictment in April 2023, ATF subpoenaed the sheriff’s emails, his campaign records, and records from the Frederick County government. There was no evidence of any quid pro quo flowing to Sheriff Jenkins and no evidence that the Sheriff had any inkling that providing such a letter to a local business was running afoul of the law. In fact, over the years, Jenkins had provided similar letters to other gun dealers in addition to Robert Krop, as early as 2013. In each instance, the ATF approved the letters. The ATF also issued written guidance to gun dealers across the United States advising them what the requirements were for these letters from law enforcement. ATF issued this guidance in 1999, 2002, 2006, and in 2023. None of this information was ever disseminated by the ATF to law enforcement agencies. Between no guidance from the ATF, and ATFs repeated approval of the letters that Jenkins did write, there was no reason for him to know that there was anything wrong, improper or illegal in doing so. There was never any evidence that Sheriff Jenkins acted with the intent to violate the law, nor that he and Robert Krop were in a criminal conspiracy together.
After the May 2022 interview by the three ATF agents by Jenkins, his counsel, Silverman Thompson attorney Andrea Smith, offered to bring him in to speak with the prosecutors. They declined to speak with Jenkins.
Smith, formerly a prosecutor for 36 years (26 of those years in the very same U.S. Attorney’s Office investigating Sheriff Jenkins), knew at that moment, that the prosecutors and agents had already made up their minds that the Sheriff was guilty. They could not have been more wrong. The emotional and financial burden on the Sheriff has been overwhelming. Sheriff Jenkins maintained his innocence from the moment he was made aware of this investigation. Two and a half years later, he was finally vindicated.
At a press conference at the Federick Law Enforcement Center at 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Ms. Smith said,
Sheriff Jenkins offered to come speak with the prosecutors. They were not interested. I have never heard of a prosecutor that did not jump at the chance to speak to someone they were investigating. It told me they had already made up their minds. As a prosecutor, it’s not about winning. It’s about getting to the truth. You don’t decide the outcome, and then go looking for the evidence to support it. You follow the evidence wherever it takes you. That is what justice looks like.
Contact Andrea Smith and the Silverman Thompson Criminal Defense Team
Baltimore criminal defense attorney Andrea Smith served as a Baltimore City Prosecutor from 1981 to 1990, and at the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland from 1990 to 2016, when she retired. Most of her career involved investigating and prosecuting violent drug gangs. A detailed description can be found here. She joined Silverman Thompson in January 2017 and has spent the last eight years defending criminal matters.
To learn more about the criminal defense team at Silverman Thompson, call us toll-free at 800-385-2243 for a free consultation, or contact Andrea Smith at asmith@silvermanthompson.com or Andrew C. White at awhite@silvermanthompson.com.