Four Convicted Felons Sentenced to Federal Prison for Firearms Trafficking at Memphis Hotel
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee announced prison sentences for four men convicted of selling firearms and fentanyl at a Memphis hotel.
2 reports on this incident · first at Sep 5, 2026, 1:51 p.m. ET
This case is not concluded. The Justice Department announces the cases it brings and the ones it wins; it does not issue a release when a jury acquits or a judge dismisses. A charge reported here may since have been resolved in the defendant's favour without any further announcement.
We last searched for new coverage of this at Sep 5, 2026, 3:39 p.m. ET — checked 6h ago.
Earlier reports
Sep 5, 2026, 1:51 p.m. ETFirst report
Four Convicted Felons Sentenced to Federal Prison for Firearms Trafficking at Memphis Hotel
Four convicted felons have been sentenced to federal prison for selling firearms at a Memphis hotel, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Tennessee announced on September 4, 2026. The sentences were handed down by Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman.
Fred Buford, 33, of Memphis, was sentenced to 180 months in prison after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Courtney Hibler, 41, of Memphis, was sentenced to 18 months for distributing fentanyl and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Frederick Munn, 38, of Memphis, received 94 months for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Larry Smith, 39, of Houston, was sentenced to 76 months for the same offense.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the men regularly possessed and sold firearms at the Economy Hotel on Lamar Avenue, which was shut down as a public nuisance in November 2024. Between July and August 2025, they facilitated 11 firearms deals, including one stolen gun, and one transaction involving fentanyl. The case was investigated by the ATF with assistance from the DEA and Memphis Police Department.
Was this report accurate and useful?
Sources
Revision history
- Version 15 Sept 2026, 17:52current
First published.
- Version 15 Sept 2026, 17:51current
First published.
How we work
This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.
Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.
Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.
None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.