Former Missouri police officer sentenced to five years for possessing machine guns
FOX23 News at 9 p.m.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., (KBSI) — A former southeast Missouri police officer was sentenced Tuesday to five years in federal prison for possessing machine guns, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. sentenced Ira Brown, 56, after Brown admitted that Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers found a fully automatic AR-15 rifle and an auto sear — a device that converts an AR-15 into a fully automatic weapon — during a court-authorized search of his Viburnum home on Oct. 23, 2020. Investigators also discovered roughly 10,000 rounds of belt-fed .223-caliber ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds.
Brown was working as a 911 dispatcher at the time but previously served as a police officer. He later fled while out on bond and was arrested in Oregon in 2024. He pleaded guilty in July 2025 to possession of a machine gun.
Brown’s son, Zerak Brown, now 24, is serving a 125-month federal sentence after he was convicted in 2021 of assaulting federal officers and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. Evidence at his trial showed he struggled with troopers during a dispute outside Ira Brown’s home, fled twice and later pointed a rifle at law enforcement officers before eventually surrendering.
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.
