NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — A career criminal from Portsmouth was sentenced on Friday to 17 years in prison for making false statements to illegally straw-purchase firearms, according to court documents.
According to court documents, 42-year-old Dartanguia Antonious Lee has other aliases such as Donte, Dante, Dionte, Snoop, Snookie and Bully.
Lee is an armed career criminal with several previous felony convictions, including serious drug crimes and five convictions for robbery with a dangerous weapon. From December 2019 to March 2020, Lee used his girlfriend as a straw-purchaser to obtain at least 19 firearms from four federally licensed firearms dealers.
As a felon, Lee cannot purchase or possess firearms or ammunition. Lee often transferred the firearms to other felons who could not purchase their own, some of which have already been recovered by law enforcement.
Lee was arrested in Greensboro, North Carolina, in September 2022, months after his federal indictment in Virginia. He was apprehended as part of a drug trafficking investigation that involved multiple firearms.
Lee has pending charges in North Carolina.
