Source: United States Department of Justice News
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Carlos Car’tre Ikard, 26, of Hickory, N.C., was sentenced to 60 months in prison and three years of supervised release for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, announced Dena J. King, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. U.S. District Judge Kenneth D. Bell presided over today’s sentencing.
U.S. Attorney King is joined in making today’s announcement by Brian Mein, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Charlotte Field Division, and Chief Thurman Whisnant of the Hickory Police Department.
According to filed documents and court proceedings, on July 13, 2020, while Ikard was on post-release supervision with the State of North Carolina, he began posting images on his Snapchat account in which he was possessing multiple firearms. The next day, law enforcement located Ikard in a vehicle parked at his residence in Hickory. Law enforcement seized from the vehicle three firearms, one of which was stolen, Oxycodone pills, and marijuana. Law enforcement also executed search warrants for Ikard’s Snapchat account and cell phone, which contained images of Ikard with the seized firearms and messages in which Ikard arranged drug sales.
Ikard is currently in federal custody and will be transferred to the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility.
The investigation was led by the ATF and the Hickory Police Department, with the assistance of the North Carolina Department of Public Services, Division of Community Corrections.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hess, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte, prosecuted the case.