An Illinois judge sentenced a man to a year and a half in prison after he illegally gave his son an assault-style weapon later used in a 2018 mass shooting in a Nashville eatery.
The father was convicted because the son was not eligible to handle or own a firearm because he had been previously diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Jeffrey Reinking, the father of Travis Reinking, was sentenced by Tazewell County Chief Judge Chris Doscotch on March 3 to 18 months in prison for illegally providing his son with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Travis used the weapon on April 22, 2018, to kill four people and injured three at the Antioch Waffle House in Nashville around 3:20 a.m. that morning, Journal Star reports. The senior Reinking was convicted in a bench trial before Doscotch in May of last year.
The crime is a Class 4 felony, which mandates the prison sentence must be between one to three years— and possibly include a fine of $25,000. The judge gave the middle ground sentence because the Reinking family currently fosters a 14-year-old child. However, Doscotch denied a lesser probation sentence for the Morton, Illinois, man.
“Giving an AR-15 rifle to a person like Travis Reinking can have deadly consequences, just as we have seen,” the judge said.
The judge gave the 59-year-old 90 days for his lawyers to prepare an appeal.
This is a likely decision as Kevin Sullivan, Jeffrey Reinking’s attorney, argued during the trial his client had no idea the Illinois gun privileges were revoked because his son underwent treatment in a hospital for his mental issues. He believed the Illinois gun license was revoked because his son was no longer living in the state, a contention backed by records uncovered by the Peoria Journal Star, the newspaper reported.
“Travis is his son, but Travis is not a child. When this took place, Travis Reinking made his own decision. Jeffrey Reinking was simply holding the firearms until Travis Reinking…
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