Tyrone James, Boston man, sentenced for selling weapons stolen from Mass. armory in 2015

A Boston man was sentenced to nearly five years behind bars Friday in connection with selling firearms stolen from a Massachusetts armory.

Tyrone James, 29, was handed a 57-month federal prison sentence to be followed by 36-months of supervised release Friday for convictions related to a 2015 break-in at the Lincoln Stoddard United States Army Reserve Center in Worcester.

James, a resident of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, was arrested soon after 16 firearms went missing from a weapons vault inside the armory on the evening of Nov. 14, 2015.

Prosecutors said he wasn’t intimately involved in the actual break-in, however, but implicated himself when he agreed to help sell the stolen weapons shortly afterwards.

According to investigators, former reservist James Morales swiped six M-4 carbines and ten M-11 semi-automatic handguns from the weapons vault on his own, then showed up in Dorchester the following day to ask for help selling the haul from James and his housemate, Ashley Bigsbee.

“Bigsbee and James then contacted numerous individuals via text message offering to sell the firearms for well below the market and street value,” the Justice Department said in a statement Friday, citing text messages and photographic evidence obtained from James’ cell phone.

“During an interview on Nov. 20, 2015, James repeatedly lied to federal agents concerning his knowledge of the sale of the firearms. Further, at the time of this offense, James had been previously convicted of three counts of armed robbery and one count of armed assault in a dwelling making him a felon in possession of those weapons,” the statement said.

James was ultimately charged with conspiracy to possess, store and sell stolen firearms, possession and sale of stolen firearms and lying to federal agents, and pleaded guilty to all counts in December 2016.

Prosecutors similarly charged Morales and Bigsbee, and the latter was sentenced earlier this month to nearly two years in federal prison.

Morales, meanwhile, is currently slated to be tried next month for his alleged role in the operation, assuming the hearing happens as scheduled. Morales briefly escaped from a maximum security detention facility in Rhode Island earlier this year and was on the run for several days before being captured after allegedly robbing a bank in Cambridge, Mass.