Levion Thomas – A Chicago man who sold a handgun used in a 2023 homicide to an undercover officer has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
Levion Thomas walked into a vehicle in Burnham. Illinois. wearing a mask. but he eventually pulled it away to reveal his face to the cameras watching from the dashboard. That single moment of exposure. followed by the exchange of a handgun for $500. marked the end of his path toward a 15-year federal prison sentence.
U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin handed down the sentence last Thursday. Thomas, who pleaded guilty to a federal illegal firearm possession charge in 2024, now faces more than a decade behind bars for selling the very weapon he had used to take a life.
The investigation centered on the death of 31-year-old Troy Pouncey. On March 5, 2023, Pouncey was shot in the face and body in the 7100 block of South Calumet Avenue around 1:15 p.m. He was rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.
Fifteen days after that shooting, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents and Chicago police officers orchestrated the purchase. They had discovered Thomas was actively looking for a buyer for the firearm, leading them to set up the sting operation in Burnham.
Before the transaction, Thomas had already established a criminal record involving weapons. In 2021, he pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, resulting in a one-year prison term.
The cycle of violence that links the March 2023 shooting on South Calumet Avenue to the quiet exchange in a Burnham car suggests a calculated disregard for the law. Thomas went from the site of a fatal crime to soliciting a buyer for the weapon within a span of just over two weeks. ultimately delivering the firearm into the hands of an undercover officer.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julia Schwartz and Jessica Ecker were clear in their assessment of the case. In court documents, they argued that the culture of illicit firearm possession in the city has become far too pervasive. “Too many people in this city believe that they can unlawfully possess firearms with impunity,” they wrote. “This needs to stop.”.
Levion Thomas Chicago crime sentencing Troy Pouncey federal prison gun violence