‘Audacious scheme’: YouTuber sentenced to federal prison for advertising ‘auto key card’ that would turn semi-automatic rifles into machine guns

YouTuber Matt Hoover sentenced

YouTuber Matthew Hoover was sentenced to five years in federal prison for his role in a conspiracy to use ‘auto key cards’ that can be used to make semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. (CRS YouTube channel)

A YouTuber with over 180,000 subscribers will spend the next five years behind bars for advertising a device known as an “auto key card” which can be used to turn a semi-automatic rifle into an illegal machine gun, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Prosecutors allege that Matthew Raymond Hoover, 39, of Wisconsin, posted videos talking about the device on his CRS Firearms YouTube page, which led to a “substantial increase” in sales. Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin, who manufactured the devices, was sentenced to five years and eight months and also must forfeit the $68,000 he made from sales, prosecutors said. A jury found the pair guilty in April.

Court records say Ervin made about 300 prototypes of the device in October 2020 and Hoover started advertising it about a month later. In all Ervin sold about 2,000 of the devices, which look similar to a bottle opener, in just a few months, the feds said. Ervin set up a website where the devices could be purchased.

“Subsequent investigation revealed that Ervin was running an online business selling machinegun conversion devices, known as lightning links, etched into metal cards, which he referred to as Auto Key Cards,” prosecutors said. “Ervin described the Auto Key Card as a ‘pen holder,’ a ‘novelty,’ and a ‘political sculpture.””

Ervin’s bank alerted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in January 2021 that he may be trafficking in machine gun conversion devices.

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