A former officer of the Acworth Police Department was in U.S. District Court in Rome Tuesday answering to accusations of his connection of weapons violations involving several former Polk County lawmen. According to court documents, Justin Matthew Dawson, who resigned from the Acworth Police Department after criminal charges were filed, waived his right to an indictment and pleaded guilty to a felony false statement charge on Tuesday. Dawson is alleged to have sold a firearm to former Polk County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Robinson on April 1, 2009 who then turned around and sold it to an undercover FBI agent. Dawson told an FBI agent that he owned and later legally sold Robinson components of the firearm. However, other testimony showed Dawson had possessed the assembled weapon in its entirety without reporting it to the proper authorities and sold the entire weapon to Robinson making the firearm not registered with federal authorities. Robinson awaits his trial on firearms charges related to the sale of the weapon and on fraud charges. Dawson is set to be sentenced on June 10 at 10 a.m. He faces as much as five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
2010-04-02