Joe’s Pawn Shop owner pleads guilty to charges stemming from 2022 raid
ALBERTVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — The owner of an Albertville pawn shop charged after an August 2022 raid pleaded guilty and was sentenced last month.
Joe Cephus Campbell III, the owner of Joe’s Pawn Shop, was charged federally with being a felon in possession of a firearm — in addition to a state charge of first-degree receiving stolen property following the raid.
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Campbell pleaded guilty to both the state and federal charges on February 22, 2024. He was sentenced to 115 months in prison, split to serve 12 months followed by 60 months of probation.
Marshall County Sheriff Phil Sims said the raid, which took place on Aug. 4, 2022, followed a four-month investigation.
During a news conference, Sims said loss prevention officials from several large area stores, including Walmart, Target, Lowe’s, and Home Depot, were involved in the investigation. He said many of the items seized in the raid were in their original boxes.
In the filing regarding Campbell’s federal firearm possession charge, Agent Phillip Sangster with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), detailed the situation and probable cause for the charge.
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Sangster said neither Campbell nor his business, had a license to sell firearms.
The agent added that Campbell was found alone upstairs in the “shipping area” of the shop and stated this room is where firearms were “created or modified and then shipped.” The room had 3D printers, boxes of magazines, and shipping labels.
Sangster said he believed most, if not all, of the firearms found in the shipping room during the search warrant were not produced in Alabama. He said since those weapons were possessed but not produced in the state, they “necessarily affected interstate commerce.”
A total of six people were arrested in connection to the four-month-long investigation.
Four of the six were men who were employed at the pawnshop – John Eller, Zachary Shake, Dylan Green, and Santo Andres.
Eller, Shake, Green, and Andres were all charged with first-degree receiving stolen property by Marshall County Sheriff’s investigators, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). A Marshall County Grand Jury indicted Eller, Shake, Green, and Andres on September 7, records show.
Campbell must turn himself into the U.S. Marshals or to the Marshall County Sheriff by March 27 to begin serving his split sentence.
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