Felon: Guns needed because of riot fears in hometown

ALBANY — Bram Fox told a federal judge he needed guns to protect him and his girlfriend from “rioting and violence” during the pandemic in 2020.

U.S. District Court Judge Mae D’agostino, noting that Fox lived in the small Ulster County community of Kerhonkson, was unmoved.

On Thursday, she sentenced Fox, 44, to five years and 10 months in prison for possessing a gun as a convicted felon — in Fox’s case due to a 2008 armed bank robbery conviction in Connecticut.

“Have you ever been to Kerhonkson?” the judge incredulously asked Fox’s attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Tim Austin, noting it was a hamlet of a small town.

Violence during protests and riots in 2020 took place in many cities after the May 25, 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Kerhonkson has a population of less than 2,000 — and no history of rioting.

“I just don’t believe it,” D’agostino told Fox in the firstfloor courtroom of the James T. Foley U.S. Courthouse.

U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett asked the judge to impose a sentence of 61⁄2 years in prison.

“It really begs credulity to believe that the riots were coming to tiny Kerhonkson, New York,” he said in court.

Felons are prohibited under federal law from owning a gun. But that did not stop Fox from ordering some $60,000 in firearm parts online to assemble 21 handguns and four rifles, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Fox also had his girlfriend — who was not charged — buy shotguns.

Fox pleaded guilty in June to illegally possessing the guns.

Fox claimed he wrongly believed he was legally allowed to build guns at home for his personal use, as long as he did not sell them, then developed an interest in legal gunsmithing, court documents show.

Fox and his attorney told the judge that Fox overcame heroin addiction to turn his life around and run a successful home improvement business.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, after seeing and hearing about the rioting and violence, we got very scared,” Fox wrote. “We decided to buy a shotgun for home protection. The shop worker said that I would never pass a background check because of my past convictions. But I could legally own and build guns at home for personal use. I just couldn’t ever sell them. He told me about a couple different websites that he uses.”

Fox said he was told “that I could build guns at home, but only for personal use. That I could never sell them or even leave them in my will to our children. Because they didn’t

have a manufacturer’s number,” the letter said.

Fox told the judge he now belonged to the Independent Order of Oddfellows, a group that helps those less fortunate.

“The man I am today is nothing like the kid I was in my 20s,” Fox wrote.

In court, with three supporters present, Fox shed tears saying he “messed up, big time.”

But D’agostino told Fox his collection of guns was inexplicable on multiple levels and rejected his claims that he was assembling the weapons due to an interest in gunsmithing.

“This went beyond a hobby in my view,” the judge told Fox. “Why? I will never know what was going on in Mr. Fox’s mind. That’s just not normal.”

Fox’s fiancee and several family members wrote letters on his behalf, as did Kimberly Green of the Albany County Sheriff’s Office’s and Corrections and Rehabilitative Service Center, who observed Fox at the county jail.

“What we see frequently in the population we work with here is blame, denial and dishonesty,” Green stated. “Bram does not present any of those traits and this has made him a role model to other inmates with whom he interacts. I believe him to be authentic and sincere.”

Barnett said Fox’s criminal history includes crimes in his younger years, which included the 2008 bank robbery, burglaries, drug possession and possessing forged instruments.

Barnett said it raised questions of Fox’s need for weapons, including so-called “ghost guns” that do not obtain serial numbers, which makes them harder to trace. Barnett said Fox was fully aware his actions were illegal and kept videos in his house about what to do if agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrived at his door.

“While it is unclear why the defendant possessed such an arsenal, nothing good was going to come from his cache of arms, which included not only ‘ghost guns,’ handguns and rifles, but also thousands of rounds of ammunition and ammunition magazines,” Barnett told the judge.

He said Fox had positive qualities but “seems to have no interest in obeying the law.”