Former Police Officer Sentenced to Five Years for Possessing Machine Guns

Iron Co., Mo. (KFMO) - A former Missouri police officer has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for possessing illegal machine guns. U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. handed down the sentence Tuesday to 56-year-old Ira Brown.

Brown admitted that Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers found a fully automatic AR-15 rifle and an auto sear capable of converting an AR-15 into a machine gun during an October 2020 search of his Viburnum home. Investigators also recovered 10,000 rounds of belt-fed .223 ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds. At the time, Brown was working as a dispatcher for a 911 call center but had previously served as a police officer.

He fled while out on bond and was later arrested in Oregon before pleading guilty in July 2025. Brown’s son, 24-year-old Zerak Brown, is currently serving a 125-month sentence for assaulting federal officers and a related firearms charge stemming from a 2020 confrontation at the family home.