CAPE GIRARDEAU – U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. on Tuesday sentenced a former police officer to five years in prison for possessing machine guns.
Ira Brown, 56, admitted that on Oct. 23, 2020, Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers found a fully automatic AR-15 rifle and an auto sear that converts an AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon. The items were found during a court-approved search of Brown’s home prompted by an unrelated investigation. Investigators also found 10,000 rounds of belt-fed .223 caliber ammunition, including armor piercing rounds, in Brown’s Viburnum home, his plea says.
Brown was employed as a dispatcher at a 911 call center at the time of his arrest but formerly worked as a police officer.
Brown fled while out on bond and was arrested in 2024 in Oregon. He pleaded guilty in July of 2025 to possession of a machine gun.
Brown’s son Zerak Brown, now 24, is now serving a 125-month prison sentence after he was convicted at trial in 2021 of two counts of assaulting a federal officer and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
Evidence and testimony at trial showed that when troopers showed up to allow Zerak Brown’s girlfriend to remove her belongings from Ira Brown’s home, Zerak Brown refused to allow them to enter. Zerak Brown struggled with the troopers, asked his brother to bring him a gun and then fled. Zerak Brown was later spotted with a rifle and ran away again, encountering law enforcement officers a third time and pointing a rifle at them, evidence and testimony showed. He later turned himself in.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Viburnum Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Hunter prosecuted the case.