Orangeburg Man Sentenced to 9 Years on Federal Firearm Charge

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — Quinnton Jamar Henderson, 32, of Orangeburg, was sentenced to 9 years in federal prison after earlier pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Evidence presented to the court showed that on December 22, 2019, officers with the Cayce Department of Public Safety responded to a shooting at a residence in Cayce. Upon arriving at the scene, they located a female lying in the front yard. She had been shot in the leg. The female told officers that she and her ex-boyfriend, Quinnton Henderson, had gotten into a verbal dispute, which escalated to Henderson vandalizing property. She said that when she told Henderson she was calling the police, he retrieved a firearm from his car and shot at her before fleeing the scene.

Law enforcement retrieved numerous .380 caliber shell casings from the crime scene and obtained a state warrant for Henderson’s arrest. Approximately one week later, members of the U.S. Marshals Carolina Regional Fugitive Task Force and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) located Henderson in a car outside a home in Orangeburg. After a car chase, Henderson was arrested and a .380 caliber pistol was recovered from the roadway, where Henderson had discarded it during the chase.

SLED conducted a ballistics analysis through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), which linked the recovered .380 caliber firearm to shell casings recovered from the December 22, 2019, Cayce shooting incident.

Henderson is prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition based upon his prior felony convictions. He has prior state convictions for unlawful possession of a pistol, failure to stop for blue light and siren, forgery, possession of crack cocaine, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, receiving stolen goods, possession of marijuana, assault and battery, resisting a public officer, pointing and presenting a firearm, grand larceny, threatening the life of a public official, distribution of methamphetamine, and assault and battery 1^st degree (involving a shooting in Orangeburg). Henderson is currently serving a 6-year state sentence for unrelated charges.

United States District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sentenced Henderson to 108 months in federal prison, to be followed by a 3-year term of court-ordered supervision.  There is no parole in the federal system.

This case was made possible by investigative leads generated from the ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN). NIBIN is the only national network that allows for the capture and comparison of ballistic evidence to aid in solving and preventing violent crimes involving firearms. NIBIN is a proven investigative and intelligence tool that can link firearms from multiple crime scenes, allowing law enforcement to quickly disrupt shooting cycles. For more information on NIBIN, visit https://www.atf.gov/firearms/national-integrated-ballistic-information-network-nibin.

This case was prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts.  PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime.  Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them.  As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.

This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Cayce Department of Public Safety, the U.S. Marshals Carolina Regional Fugitive Task Force, SLED, and the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Casey Rankin Smith of the Lexington County Solicitor’s Office prosecuted the case.

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