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Man Involved In Illegal Gun-Selling Ring Sentenced To Decades In Prison

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The final member of a New York City gun ring was sentenced Tuesday.

As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, Jason Teneyck, 36, is the last of six defendants to be sentenced as part of a drug and gun trafficking ring with an unusual cast of characters.

It involved New York City police officer Nicholas Mina, who stole guns from the lockers of fellow officers to support his painkiller addiction, and Jennifer Sultan, a bankrupt one-time dot com millionaire, Cornell reported.

Man Involved In Illegal Gun-Selling Ring Sentenced To Decades In Prison

Teneyck's role involved selling 10 of the weapons to an undercover cop who posed as a dangerous criminal, Cornell reported.

"Every day, families and communities are destroyed by guns and drugs – two of the dangerous types of contraband sold by this trafficking ring," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. "Today's sentencing closes a case that involved the sale of illegal products in the underground market, the end of a police officer's career, and all six defendants receiving significant prison sentences for their crimes."

Teneyck's lawyer argued that his client did not understand that he was being used in the operation.

"He's not a hardened criminal," the lawyer told the judge.

But Judge Edward McLaughlin sentenced him to 31 and a half years behind bars.

"For you to say you wouldn't shoot anybody, but you sold deadly weapons on the underground market, is ridiculous," McLaughlin told Teneyck.

Mina, 32, was sentenced in November to 15 and a half years in prison, plus five years of post-release supervision.

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