Charlestown man gets three years for illegal gun sales to area gang members and others

A Charlestown man who admitted acquiring 36 guns through a straw purchaser in New Hampshire to resell to Boston-area customers was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison today, the US Attorney's office reports.

The sentence is two years less than a Worcester man recently got for using other people's credit-card info to buy and resell MBTA commuter-rail passes.

Charles Baker, 45, was already barred from buying guns legally because of a past gun conviction and has a record of various gun and drug crimes in other states. He pleaded guilty in June in US District Court in Boston to one count of dealing in firearms without a license and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

According to prosecutors, he arranged for the purchase of the guns between August, 2018 and May, 2019. At least seven of the guns were later recovered from area gang members as part of their arrests, the US Attorney's office says.

In a sentencing recommendation calling for the 37-month sentence a federal judge handed down, prosecutors cited a litany of past convictions and added:

Indeed, the government’s primary concern is that this sentence, though at the high-end of the applicable guidelines sentencing range, affords insufficient specific deterrence and punishment. On balance, however, and given the near-decade since the Defendant’s last period of imprisonment in Missouri, 37 months of imprisonment should afford sufficient specific deterrence to this Defendant and properly punish him.