FBI Arrests Felon with Ammunition

GULFPORT, MS—On Friday, May 20, 2011, FBI special agents arrested WILLIAM C. PAULEY, age 64, pursuant to an arrest warrant issued on May 17, 2011, by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. The criminal complaint filed in support of the warrant alleges that PAULEY is a felon, convicted of federal and state crimes in multiple states, including Virginia, Florida, Missouri, and Mississippi. PAULEY’s most recent conviction for two counts of felony forgery in Missouri occurred in December of 2007, for which crimes PAULEY is currently on probation. The complaint charges that PAULEY is in violation of Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 922(g)(1), for being a felon in possession of ammunition.

On February 25, 2011, PAULEY was arrested by the Stone County, Mississippi Sheriff’s Office as a fugitive from Missouri, in violation of his probation. Based on a joint Stone County Sheriff’s Office/FBI/South Mississippi Safe Streets Task Force (SMSSTF) investigation, a warrant was obtained to search a storage unit rented by PAULEY in Vancleave, Mississippi. On March 15, 2011, with the assistance of the FBI, the Jackson County, Mississippi Sheriff’s Office conducted a search of the storage unit, which was found to contain several boxes of miscellaneous ammunition.

PAULEY made his initial appearance before Chief United States Magistrate Judge John M. Roper on Monday, May 23, 2011. A detention hearing and arraignment, scheduled for Tuesday, May 24, 2011, has been rescheduled for 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 25, 2011, before Judge Roper.

The FBI Safe Streets Task Force is a member of the Gulf Coast HIDTA initiative and receives significant funding from the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington D.C. It is made up of special agents from the FBI and law enforcement officers from the Pascagoula, Moss Point, Gautier, and Ocean Springs Police Departments, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.

Daniel McMullen, Special Agent in Charge of the Jackson Field Office of the FBI, reminds the public that an arrest is not evidence of guilt and that all defendants in a criminal case are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.