Fishburne sentenced on federal charges

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Acting United States Attorney A. Lance Crick announced today that a federal jury convicted Quentin John Fishburne, a/k/a “Q”, 40, of Walterboro, on numerous firearms charges, including two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of conspiracy to make false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm.

Evidence presented to the jury showed that in March 2018, officers with the Walterboro Police Department discovered a loaded .40 caliber pistol under Fishburne’s seat at a traffic safety checkpoint.

At the time, Fishburne was on federal supervision following a 2017 conviction for aiding and abetting attempted murder in aid of racketeering. This conviction arose from a November 6, 2015, shooting in Colleton County, in which members and associates of Walterboro’s violent street gang disputed the outcome of an illegal car race and then attempted to rob a man holding money wagered on the race. Two men were shot, but authorities were not able to identify all of the shooters. Fishburne admitted to being an associate of the gang and driving another gang member from the scene of the shooting, and he received a time-served sentence.

Shortly after Fishburne was arrested with the .40 caliber pistol, his girlfriend, who had purchased the pistol from a Walterboro gun store, claimed that she had inadvertently left the gun in the vehicle Fishburne was driving. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) became suspicious, however, when they discovered that Fishburne had previously been arrested with another gun purchased by the same woman.

Additionally, ballistic analysis showed the gun discovered under Fishburne’s seat matched three .40 caliber shell casings recovered from the scene of the November 6, 2015, shooting involving the gang, the same shooting that led to Fishburne’s 2017 conviction.

Fishburne was also convicted of possessing another firearm purchased by the same girlfriend, which was recovered by deputies of the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office following a high-speed chase involving Fishburne in 2014. In this incident, Fishburne fled from deputies and reached speeds of over 90 miles-an-hour on country roads while he and his passenger brandished handguns at the pursuing officer.

The jury heard testimony from the officers and deputies who recovered these firearms from Fishburne, the ATF special agent who uncovered the pattern of Fishburne’s girlfriend providing him with guns, and a South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) firearms expert who linked the .40 caliber pistol discovered with Fishburne in 2018 to shell casings from the November 6, 2015 shooting. The jury took only three hours to find Fishburne guilty on all charges.

Fishburne previously spent 10 years in a Georgia prison after killing his 18-year-old cousin over a dice game when he was 14 years old.

Fishburne faces of maximum penalty of 25 years in federal prison. United States District Judge David C. Norton, who presided over the day-and-a-half long trial, will sentence him after receiving and reviewing a sentencing report prepared by the United States Probation Office.

The case was investigated by the ATF, SLED, the Walterboro Police Department, and the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office.

This case was prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.

This case was also made possible by investigative leads generated from ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). NIBIN is the only national network that allows for the capture and comparison of ballistic evidence to aid in solving and preventing violent crimes involving firearms. NIBIN is a proven investigative and intelligence tool that can link firearms from multiple crime scenes, allowing law enforcement to quickly disrupt shooting cycles. For more information on NIBIN, visit https://www.atf.gov/firearms/national-integrated-ballistic-information-network-nibin.

Assistant United States Attorney Chris Schoen and Special Assistant United States Attorney Carra Henderson, both of the Charleston office, prosecuted the case.