PORTLAND — A New Gloucester man was sentenced Thursday to a year and a day in federal prison for making false statements while buying a gun from a federally licensed dealer.
Ryan Barry, 42, pleaded guilty to the felony in July after waiving his right to a grand jury indictment on the charge, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
After he has served his sentence, Barry will be on supervised release for three years.
In June and July 2022, Barry bought several guns at the direction of and with money supplied by a coconspirator, prosecutors said.
After buying each gun, he would give it to that unnamed coconspirator shortly afterward, prosecutors said. And during the purchase, Barry gave false information to the federally licensed firearm dealer he bought it from.
When he bought two Glock pistols (a .45-caliber and a 9 mm) from a Turner firearms dealer, Barry said on the purchase form that he was the actual owner of the guns and that he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to “controlled substances when, in fact, he was addicted to and actively using crack cocaine,” according to prosecutors.
In all, Barry bought nine guns over that 24-day period, three from a Buckfield gun shop and six from two Turner gun shops, according to court records.
All of the guns were Glock pistols, including six 9 mm, one .45-caliber, one .40-caliber and one 10 mm, according to court records.
Barry’s attorney, Jeffrey Langholtz, told U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock Jr. that Barry was 14 when his 16-year-old sister suffered fatal injuries in a car crash on her way to school.
Langholtz wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Barry had been “extremely close to his sister until her untimely death. The family was unable to address their collective and individual grief and Ryan was forever changed.”
Langholtz wrote that Barry’s “family describes Ryan as possessing no self-esteem, having been bullied and ridiculed due to his severe acne and suffering emotional abuse at the hands of his father.”
With the pandemic, his personal life and financial security collapsed and he began using drugs, his attorney wrote.
“When he no longer had any money at all, Ryan became the perfect target for dealers seeking desperate users who would purchase guns for them in exchange for drugs,” Langholtz wrote.
“Mr. Barry has been battling longstanding substance abuse problems for some time. He was working to better himself but became overwhelmed by his own unresolved issues as well as by both unusual economic and social factors beyond his control,” Langholtz wrote.
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