INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis man has been sentenced to prison after being found unconscious in a running vehicle with a machine gun on I-465.
Michael Parham, 31, of Indianapolis has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.
According to court documents, on August 26, 2021, Carmel Police Department officers responded to reports of a man slumped over the steering wheel of his vehicle at the I-465 westbound exit to U.S. 31 South at 9:36 a.m.
Upon arrival, officers say they saw two men passed out in the driver and front passenger seats of a white Buick Regal. The driver was identified as Parham.
The Buick was running and in drive, with Parham’s foot on the brake. The windows of the Buick were all rolled down and the doors were locked.
According to police, an officer reached into the Buick and put the vehicle in park. The officer then began shaking and yelling at Parham to wake him from his unconscious state.
Police say Parham did not verbally respond to any questions about his medical status or whether he was under the influence of narcotics. Officers removed the keys from the Buick and arrested him.
During the search of the vehicle, officers located a loaded 9-millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol on the front driver floorboard in plain view. The Glock pistol was loaded and equipped with a machine gun conversion device, sometimes called a “Glock switch.”
According to police, Parham is prohibited from possessing any firearm due to his previous federal felony conviction for robbery. At the time of this arrest, Parham was still on supervised release after being released from federal prison for the robbery.
“Violent criminals who continue to illegally arm themselves pose a tremendous danger to our communities, especially when their handguns are illegally converted into machine guns” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Zachary A. Myers, said. “This defendant demonstrated that he learned little from his prior sentence. He will now return to federal prison, ensuring that the public will again be protected from any of his further crimes while he is incarcerated. Our office will continue to work with our partners at ATF and the Carmel Police Department to disarm dangerous offenders and get them off our streets.”
Parham will also be supervised by the U.S. Probation Office for three years following his release from prison.
