Man pleads guilty to buying snipers a rifle

TACOMA – A 36-year-old Tacoma man pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge that he bought a rifle for the Washington, D.C.-area snipers.

Earl L. Dancy Jr. faces a maximum 10 years in prison when he is sentenced before U.S. District Judge Franklin D. Burgess on June 24. He pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement in connection with the acquisition of a firearm.

On a federal form when he bought a .308-caliber Remington rifle from Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, Dancy claimed he intended to use the weapon himself, the U.S. attorney’s office said. But during the November 2003 trial of John Allen Muhammad, Dancy admitted under oath he bought it for Muhammad.

Muhammad, 44, and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, lived in the Tacoma area before heading east and beginning a terrifying string of random sniper shootings that left 10 dead in October 2002. Muhammad is on Virginia’s death row after being convicted of murder. Muhammad could not legally possess a gun at the time because of a domestic-violence protective order against him.