A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Aizavier Roache, 31, of Roxbury, to 4 3/4 years in prison for selling at least six guns he'd obtained from a pal who bought them at gun shops in South Carolina.

One of those guns was used in a double shooting on Humphreys Street in Dorchester's Uphams Corner shortly after midnight on May 10, 2023 that left a man with gunshot wounds to his chest, hip and ankle, and a woman with a gunshot wound to her arm, according to federal prosecutors.The shooter had bought the gun from Roache just 15 days earlier.

Police ultimately recovered several other guns he sold from people without licenses, including at least one member of a local gang.

Roache pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to traffic firearms for a three-year gun-buying spree. The South Carolina man who actually bought the guns that Roache re-sold in Boston, Trevon Brunson, has also pleaded guilty. He is scheduled for sentencing next month.

The two first came to the attention of ATF in 2021 - when agents interviewed Brunson, who acknowledged selling guns to a guy he claimed to only know as "Boston." Investigators started taking a closer look at the pair after Boston Police recovered the gun used in the Uphams Corner shooting and traced it back to South Carolina, according to court filings.

Assistant US Attorney Luke Goldworm had urged US District Court Judge Leo Sorokin to send Roache away for 70 months - almost 6 years - not just because of the harm done by the guns but because, while awaiting trial or sentencing at a federal detention facility in Rhode Island, Roache took to selling marijuana to other inmates and to participating in a beatdown on an inmate suspected of cooperating with the feds. Also, while he was not charged for it, he was implicated - including in texts and videos on his own phone - of supplementing his gun income by cooking and selling crack, Goldworm wrote.

"The Government would suggest that there is ample evidence that the defendant was engaged beyond the events of this case, not in a singular departure from our societal norms but in a pattern of criminal conduct that extended beyond the sale of a few firearms or even multiple firearms, but to the sale of another blight in our communities, illicit drugs. Alarmingly, the defendant exhibits a similar disregard here for human life and the safety of our communities in exchange for his own personal and financial gain that he does with his firearms business. Boasting to others in Massachusetts and South Carolina about his burgeoning crack business. Even while in the confines of a federal detention facility he was caught engaging in both violent conduct and illicit drug activity.

"In light of the collateral additional safety risk caused by the defendant’s criminal behavior, combined with his deeply concerning collateral and post arrest behavior, a sentence of 70 months would provide just punishment for the impact he had on the safety of his community and the lives of those around him."

Roache's attorney, Joshua Hanye, urged a sentence of 48 months. He said Roache acknowledged he did wrong, he had a loving mother and stepfather to help guide him into a productive and legal life and that prosecutors were wrongly stating Roache should be blamed, via sentencing, for dozens of guns, when he only admitted to selling six.

Also, he grew up in lower Roxbury and the neighboring South End, which were "filled with drugs and crime" and a father absent from his life because he was addicted to drugs - which led him to seek out "older males in the neighborhood," even as he was struggling with a learning disability and the fact that other kids in the neighborhood constantly picked on him because he had a speech impediment and weight problems.

"Although his father's absence, incarceration, and addiction all had serious effects on his life, the love and support of his mother and her family taught him skills, including resiliency. His mother, two aunts, and three cousins have all written letters of support for him. They uniformly describe him as kind, loving, and hard working. Examples of his hard work in the face of challenges can be found in the Presentence Report as well. Despite his learning disabilities and not completing high school he obtained a GED. He also has a strong work history. For the 10 years from 2014 until his arrest he was employed steadily except during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Mr. Roache is motivated to return to gainful employment upon release so that he can provide for his two-year-old son. He would very much like to interrupt the cycle of paternal abandonment that was so devastating for him. His stepfather has offered to assist him in obtaining his CDL license and employment as a truck driver. Mr. Roache has described his mother's relationship with his stepfather as "a perfect love story" and notes that he would like for the two of them to be closer. This would be a perfect opportunity to help Mr. Roache heal some of his own wounds and learn how to prevent inflicting similar ones on his own son."