MC Man Pleads Guilty to Gun Charge in US District Court

By Roberta Cantrell
BSN Editor

A Martin County man will be sentenced in July after he agreed to plead guilty to a federal gun charge in exchange for drug charges dropped.

Jimmy D. Cornett, 61, pleaded guilty April 7 in U.S. District Court in Lexington to a charge that he sold a Remington Model 870 Express Magnum 12-gauge shotgun on May 9, 2025, to a confidential informant. In exchange, federal prosecutors agreed to dismiss two meth trafficking charges and a second charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon for having two additional firearms allegedly found when officers arrested him Aug. 15, 2025.

Cornett had previously been convicted of similar charges in 2010.

It was reported that in 2010, a federal grand jury charged Cornett in conspiracy with James Perry, in connection with a methamphetamine operation centered on a stolen trailer on Cornett’s property at 6031 Rockhouse Road. Cornett was charged with conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, manufacturing methamphetamine or aiding and abetting that manufacture, possessing equipment and materials used to manufacture methamphetamine, possessing a .22-caliber rifle in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, possessing that .22 rifle after a felony conviction and possessing a 12-gauge shotgun after a felony conviction.

U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar ruled Aug. 26, 2010, that the government had presented enough evidence to sustain the meth-related convictions and the felon-in-possession conviction tied to the 12-gauge shotgun found in Cornett’s home. But the judge dropped two other gun convictions being one alleging possession of the .22 rifle found in a trailer on the property and the other one alleging possession of that rifle in furtherance of drug trafficking after finding the government had not sufficiently proved Cornett knowingly possessed the rifle.

That left Cornett with four convictions in the 2010 case: three for methamphetamine production and one for possession of the 12-gauge shotgun as a convicted felon.

These 2010 convictions played a substantial role in the recent case showing Cornett knew what he was doing was illegal.

In August of 2025, Cornett was once again arrested for the incident in May of 2025, after officers executed a federal warrant at a home on Mary Perry Road in Tomahawk.

According to court records, law enforcement used a confidential informant May 8, 2025, to buy 0.925 grams of methamphetamine from Cornett at his Martin County residence. During that controlled buy, the informant saw a firearm, the record states.

The informant returned the next day for a second controlled buy and paid Cornett $200 for 6.614 grams of methamphetamine, according to the agreement. During that same visit, prosecutors said, Cornett also sold the Remington shotgun to the informant for $250. The plea agreement says Cornett had the gun in his actual possession when he transferred it and told the informant he had another firearm as well.

That shotgun sale became the reason for the charge to which Cornett agreed to plead guilty. Because of the 2010 felony convictions, federal law barred him from possessing the weapon. Prosecutors also say the shotgun was manufactured outside Kentucky and therefore had traveled in interstate commerce.

When officers went to Cornett’s residence Aug. 15, 2025, to execute an arrest warrant, they arrested him and found at least one additional firearm, according to the plea agreement. A superseding indictment filed Aug. 28, 2025, alleges Cornett possessed two more guns that day: a Keystone Sporting Arms Crickett .22-caliber rifle and a break-action, long-barreled, single-shot shotgun. That second gun charge was dismissed under the plea deal.

The indictment accused Cornett of four federal crimes stemming from the 2025 investigation: distributing methamphetamine May 8, distributing methamphetamine May 9, illegally possessing the Remington shotgun May 9, and illegally possessing the .22 rifle and single-shot shotgun Aug. 15.

Under the plea deal, only the May 9 gun charge of the Remington shotgun would remain.

The maximum penalty for the charge is 15 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, up to three years of supervised release and a mandatory $100 special assessment.

Cornett is scheduled to be sentenced July 9 at 1:30 p.m. in Lexington.