A former suburban gun shop owner and two employees accused of illegal gun sales that helped fuel the New Orleans area's violent crime problem were sentenced to prison terms for federal firearm violations and fraud.  

In May 2007, federal agents raided Elliot’s Gun Shop in Jefferson Parish. The agents seized hundreds of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition. At the time, investigators said more than 2,300 firearms sold from the shop in the past five years have been tied to crimes in the metropolitan area, including 125 to murder investigations and 500 to illegal drug crimes.

The three suspects, Timothy Harris Sr., 55, Hermann Eicke, 66, and Rebecca Zitzmann, 43, pled guilty to the crimes in November.

Wednesday Judge Sarah Vance sentenced Harris to serve two concurrent sentences on wire fraud and firearm violations, totaling up to 37 months in prison. In addition, he will be under supervised release for three years and he will have to pay a 10,000 dollar fine.

Eicke was sentenced to serve 24 months in prison for conspiracy to engage the dealing in firearms without a license. He will also be under supervised release for three years and have to pay a 6,000 fine.

Zitzmann was sentenced to five months in prison, three years of supervised release and a three thousand dollar fine.

During sentencing, David Harper, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s New Orleans Office stated: “Today’s sentences represent the complete dismantling of an organization that fueled the violent crime in New Orleans for many years by illegally diverting guns from the legitimate trade to local violent criminals.”