ELKOIT, Wis. – During a search request in March 2023, a man in southern Wisconsin was found to have over 6,500 grams of marijuana on him. On Tuesday, he was sent to federal prison.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Wisconsin said that Byron D. Broomfield, who is 37 years old, was given a six-and-a-half-year federal prison term for having firearms after being convicted of a felony and keeping a drug-related home.
Before they searched Broomfield’s home in Beloit in March 2023, police had been looking into him for drug dealing since January 2023. Police say that while they were investigating, they found “substantial marijuana dealing” proof in Broomfield’s trash.
Police say they saw Broomfield and another guy enter Broomfield’s house with an empty bag on March 6, 2023. Not long after that, the other man left the house with the same bag, but this time it was full. Another two people came to the house a few hours later with an empty backpack and soon left with a full backpack.
It is said that police stopped the two people and found two pounds of weed in one of their backpacks. What the police say is that those people told them that Broomfield sold them the pot.
Then, a search warrant was obtained, and Broomfield’s home was searched. Police found 6,599 grams of marijuana that had been “commercially packaged for distribution” and Broomfield’s DNA on a loaded Taurus G3C 9mm handgun that they found during the search.
In Broomfield’s car, police also found a Masterpiece Arms Defender 9mm handgun with its serial number erased and a Glock Model 19 handgun with a Glock “switch” connected to it.
The police say that a “Glock switch” is a popular name for an illegal aftermarket part that turns a semiautomatic handgun into a fully functional machine gun.
Broomfield admitted guilt on February 14, 2024, and U.S. District Judge William M. Conley gave him his punishment.
Judge Conley said during the sentencing process that gun violence “plagues the nation” and that the Beloit community was no different. Judge Conley also thought about how dangerous it was for everyone that Broomfield had a weapon with a Glock switch.
It was said in the statement that this is Broomfield’s second federal felony conviction. Broomfield was found guilty of selling cocaine in the Western District of Wisconsin in 2010.
