Machine gun conversion devices sold online as novelties lead to guilty verdict

FLORIDA – A federal jury has convicted two men for conspiring to transfer unregistered machine gun conversion devices sold online as novelty items.

Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin, 43, of Orange Park, and Matthew Raymond Hoover, 39, of Wisconsin, were found guilty of conspiring to transfer unregistered machine gun conversion devices that they referred to as “Auto Key Cards.”

Additionally, Ervin was convicted of seven counts of transferring unregistered machine gun conversion devices, three counts of possessing unregistered machine gun conversion devices, and one count of structuring cash transactions to avoid currency transaction reporting requirements.

Hoover was also convicted of four counts of transferring unregistered machine gun conversion devices.

Ervin faces a maximum penalty of 110 years in federal prison, and Hoover faces a maximum penalty of 45 years in federal prison, said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida (USAO).

The sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 31, 2023. Ervin was first charged on March 2, 2021, and Hoover on January 26, 2022. Both Ervin and Hoover have been remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced the verdict on April 21.

According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, in January 2021, Ervin’s bank contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to report that employees believed Ervin was trafficking machine gun conversion devices. The subsequent investigation reportedly revealed that Ervin was running an online business selling machine gun conversion devices, known as lightning links, etched into metal cards, which he referred to as Auto Key Cards.

Ervin described the Auto Key Card as a “pen holder,” a “novelty,” and a “political sculpture.”

A lightning link can be dropped into an otherwise legal AR-15 type firearm and convert it into a fully automatic machine gun, said the USAO.

The online price for the devices reportedly ranged from $59 to $139, according to court documents.

In February 2021, federal agents from ATF and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) said they surveilled Ervin and observed him dropping off dozens of packages at an Orange Park, Florida post office, each of which was determined to contain unregistered machine gun conversion devices.

The ATF said it examined the Auto Key Cards, and a firearms enforcement officer was able to remove the pieces of a lightning link from an Auto Key Card using a common Dremel rotary tool in about 40 minutes. When the firearms enforcement officer placed the two pieces of the lightning link into an AR-15 type firearm, it converted the semi-automatic firearm to be fully automatic, prosecutors said.

According to testimony and evidence presented at trial, Hoover operated a YouTube channel called CRS Firearms, on which he advertised Auto Key Cards. In his videos, Hoover stated that “laws only work if we follow them” and encouraged his viewers to use “discreet ordering” by mail to purchase Auto Key Cards.

Hoover stated that his viewers could cut a lightning link out of the Auto Key Card, “drop it in your receiver, scratch your full auto itch, throw it away when you’re done,” and “no one’s the wiser.”

Hoover’s videos advertising the Auto Key Card led to a substantial increase in Ervin’s sales, said the USAO. Reportedly, Ervin sold more than 2,000 Auto Key Cards in only a few months.

Multiple purchasers of the Auto Key Card testified at trial that they had learned about it from Hoover’s videos and purchased the Auto Key Card intending to use it to convert their AR-15-type weapons into machine guns. Ervin is said to have compensated Hoover for his advertisements by sending cash through the mail and, on one occasion, a Louis Vuitton purse.

In March 2021, federal agents executed a search warrant at Ervin’s home and reported recovering Auto Key Cards containing etchings for more than 1,500 lightning links.

This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation. Assistant United States Attorneys Laura Cofer Taylor and David B. Mesrobian are prosecuting it.