DATE: Tuesday, July 8, 1997                 TAG: 9707080260

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   41 lines

U.S. PROSECUTION OF GUN CASES HAS CUT SEIZURES OF FIREARMS

A joint city-federal program to send selected gun cases to U.S. District Court has cut in half the monthly harvest of firearms seized by Richmond police.

``It is clear that those people want to avoid federal prosecution,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schiller said of the program, Project Exile. ``The word is getting out. We hear there is a lot of talk in the city about it. They say, `You don't want to get caught with a gun because the feds'll get you.' ''

In Circuit Court, people accused of gun-related crimes often are released on bond pending trial. That rarely happens in U.S. District Court, where convictions carry mandatory minimum sentences of five years or more.

In January, just as Project Exile was beginning, police confiscated 140 guns, an 18-month high. The number has declined markedly every month since then as word got around, dipping to 67 guns in June.

The June figure was well below the 106 guns seized the same month last year, and the lowest since January 1996, according to city police figures.

Schiller attributed the decline to the ``no guns'' message getting out on the street. Potentially violent criminals are leaving their weapons behind rather than risk the near-certainty of going to federal prison, he said.

Project Exile got its name for the concept of sending the people who carry guns away from Richmond - to federal prison for long sentences.

When a city police officer apprehends a suspect carrying a gun, the officer contacts an agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. If the agent and the officer agree that a federal statute applies, the defendant is prosecuted in the federal system rather than in Circuit Court.

Through June 23, 101 defendants had been indicted under Project Exile. Schiller said 88 of those have been arrested, 79 of them held without bond pending trial. Fifty defendants have pleaded guilty, and five have been convicted at trial. KEYWORDS: PROJECT EXILE GUNS HANDGUNS

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