CHICAGO — This is an official press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)), published as received.
CHICAGO — A man has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for illegally possessing a loaded handgun on a Chicago train while he was on court-supervised release from a prior drug trafficking conviction.
GERALD PITTMAN was arrested on July 28, 2025, aboard the Chicago Transit Authority’s Blue Line train while drinking a beer, smoking, and holding a red shopping bag that contained a loaded handgun. Pittman had previously been convicted of multiple felony offenses and was legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.
One of Pittman’s prior felonies was a federal drug trafficking conviction, for which Pittman was on court-supervised released at the time of his arrest on the Blue Line.
Pittman, 39, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in February 2026 to a federal charge of illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. On May 19, 2026, U.S. District Judge Sunil R. Harjani sentenced Pittman to 30 months in federal prison. Following this term of incarceration, Pittman must serve an additional six months in federal prison for violating the terms of his court-supervised release from the drug trafficking case. That brings the total term of Pittman’s period of incarceration to three years.
The sentence was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Christopher Amon, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Valuable assistance was provided by the Chicago Police Department.
Shortly before Pittman’s arrest and federal prosecution, U.S. Attorney Boutros expanded the Project Safe Neighborhoods program to include the economic centers in downtown Chicago and the entire rail system operated by the CTA, including all train lines operating in every neighborhood from every part of the city. The expansion represented the first time anywhere in the country that the PSN program was deployed on mass transit and the first time in Chicago that the city’s downtown economic corridors were given the federal PSN designation.
The federal investigation was conducted in coordination with ATF’s Crime Gun Intelligence Center of Chicago. The CGIC is a centralized law enforcement partnership that focuses exclusively on investigating and prosecuting violent offenders who utilize firearms in commission of their crimes in Chicago and throughout northern Illinois. Every firearm-related case in Chicago is processed through the CGIC on a daily basis.
“Defendant did not possess a gun in a private residence; he was carrying it in a shopping bag while riding on the L, where gun violence has risen at an alarming rate in recent years,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Maione argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Gun-wielding riders like the defendant have caused an increasing share of Chicagoans to fear for their lives when riding Chicago’s public train system. Indeed, defendant’s offense—carrying a gun on a CTA train while impaired—is the type of behavior driving violent crime on public transportation, instilling fear in innocent transit patrons, and scaring countless others away from riding trains that are meant to serve everyone in this city.”
