Former Naval weapons instructor pleads guilty to possessing silencers

JACKSONVILLE – U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced Rocco Joseph Frakes, 50, Middleburg, pleaded guilty to unlawfully possessing unregistered silencers and a short-barrel rifle. Frakes faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

According to the plea agreement, on July 25, federal agents executed a search warrant at Frakes’s home. They located a .22 caliber rifle with a threaded barrel, three silencers, a rifle with a 7½-inch long barrel and a .45 caliber machinegun in Frakes’s bedroom. Contrary to federal law, none of these devices were registered to Frakes in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record – a database maintained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Frakes is retired from the U.S. Navy, where his primary duty was as a weapons instructor for Atlantic Fleet squadrons.

Homeland Security Investigations investigated this case, as did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elisibeth Adams is prosecuting it.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program that brings together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and gun violence and make our neighborhoods safer. On May 26, 2021, the department launched a violent crime reduction strategy strengthening PSN based on these core principles: fostering trust and legitimacy in our communities, supporting community-based organizations that help prevent violence from occurring in the first place, setting focused and strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring the results.