BOSTON, March 12, 2014—A Boston Municipal Court jury rejected a Mattapan gun defendant’s claim that he was planning on turning in the loaded handgun Boston Police found in his waistband after responding to a call for shots fired, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

Jurors convicted JEFF JEAN (D.O.B. 6/14/90) of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and carrying a loaded firearm. After the verdicts were returned, Judge Michael Coyne dismissed the charge of unlawful possession of ammunition as duplicative of the conviction for carrying a loaded firearm.

Jurors rejected Jean’s defense at trial: that he had found the firearm and was planning on turning it in at a police station but was sidetracked when he heard that shots had been fired near his home.

“This case involved a man on federal probation with a stolen, loaded firearm near the scene of a shots-fired call,” Conley said. “The rapid response by Boston Police prevented a shooting, or much worse, that night.”

Assistant District Attorney Lindsey Weinstein, chief of the DA’s Gun Prosecution Task Force, recommended that Jean be sentenced to 2 ½ years in a house of correction to be followed by four years of probation during which he would be required to wear a GPS monitor.  Coyne sentenced Jean to 18 months in the house of correction and 30 days probation.  The sentence was deemed served as Jean was held while awaiting trial for violating the terms of his probation on a conviction out of federal court for pandering.

During the two-day trial, Weinstein presented evidence and testimony to prove that on May 20, 2012, Boston Police officers who responded to Groveland Street in Mattapan for a ShotSpotter activation.  Officers attempted to approach a group of men standing outside drinking alcohol in the area where it was believed that gunshots had activated the Shot Spotter, and Jean immediately split off from the group and began walking in the opposite direction of police.  The testimony proved that Jean walked away with his hand held to his waist area – an action the officers recognized from their training as a characteristic of an armed gunman.

During a brief conversation with police, Jean permitted the officers to perform a pat frisk, during which officers found a Springfield .40 caliber semiautomatic firearm tucked into Jean’s waistband and concealed by his shirt, the evidence showed. The firearm was loaded with eight live rounds of ammunition in the magazine and had been reported stolen from a home in Farmingdale, Maine.

Jean was represented by attorney Anne Rousseve.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.