JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The video above is from a previous unrelated story.
United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida Roger B. Handberg announced the arrest of a father and son duo in Live Oak.
Forty-four year-old Dustin Eward and twenty-four year-old Greg Eward are being held on a criminal complaint charging them with the possession and transfer of firearm silencers not registered to them in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
The complaint also charges Dustin Eward with threatening to kill a federal law enforcement officer.
If convicted on all counts, Dustin Eward faces a possible twenty years in federal prison and his son Greg faces ten years.
According to the complaint, the Ewards live together in Live Oak and run a company selling “solvent traps,” which are more commonly known as firearm silencers or suppressors.
Silencers are muzzling devices used to reduce the sound of a firearm when discharged.
Under federal law it is illegal to receive or possess silencers which aren't registered to that person in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
The complaint alleges that during two separate transactions in 2022, an undercover federal agent purchased three firearm silencers from the Ewards.
Dustin Eward has a history of threatening law enforcement and public officials with violence via YouTube, a personal website that he hosts, by phone, and by email, according to the complaint.
On April 15, 2022, Eward emailed a federal agent stating, “Your actions are an act of war against all Americans, and I will respond accordingly.” He also stated, “I have nothing left to lose. Arrest me? Kill me? .... Death is an upgrade. The only dream I have left is to take you with me.”
He continued, “You will call off your attack, or I will defend myself the only way I have left; with maximum violence. I’m willing to die in this fight. Are you? I will not submit to satanic traitors.”
A complaint is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.
This case is being prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts.
Special agents from FBI Jacksonville are not aware of any additional threats related to this investigation. They have declined to provide additional comment at this time.