Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Jezerel Huston, of Georgia, was sentenced to prison for transporting these illegal firearms from the deep south into southeast Queens following a six-month investigation. He was indicted along with a codefendant from South Jamaica in September 2025.
Photo courtesy of DA’s office
A Georgia man was sentenced to a decade in prison for trafficking guns from his state along the so-called Iron Pipeline into southeast Queens after he was caught up in an undercover sting operation nearly a year ago.
Jezerel Huston, 42, of Macon County, pleaded guilty to criminal sale of a firearm in the first degree on June 24, in satisfaction of the indictment against him. Huston and his codefendant Teddy Gaston, 40, on Linden Boulevard in South Jamaica, were arrested in September 2025, after the undercover investigation resulted in the purchase of 59 firearms. An additional 18 guns were seized upon the defendants’ arrest.
According to the indictment and investigation, members of the Queens District Attorney’s office, the NYPD’s JFK Task Force Unit, and Homeland Security Investigations began a firearms trafficking investigation involving Gaston, known on the streets as “JD Yikes” and Huston in March 2025. Huston would procure firearms in Georgia, transport them to New York, and provide them to Gaston, who would then sell the weapons in Queens.
An undercover officer conducted eight controlled buys with the defendants between April 7 and Aug. 29. The transactions resulted in the seizure of 59 firearms, including seven assault weapons and one ghost gun, 98 fentanyl pills, approximately 100 grams of cocaine and multiple rounds of ammunition. Most of the firearms contained high-capacity magazines, and some of the weapons were defaced. Many of the gun purchases took place at a McDonald’s parking lot on Merrick Boulevard near 244th Street in Rosedale.
The undercover sting operation resulted in the seizure of more than 70 firearms, ammunition, and drugs; most transactions took place in a McDonald’s parking lot in Rosedale. Photo courtesy of the DA’s office
“Our number one priority must be stopping the flow of dangerous weapons into the borough of Queens,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “Our investigation with law enforcement partners resulted in the seizure of 77 guns that will never be used here to cause harm.”
Queens Supreme Court Justice Toni Cimino sentenced Huston to ten years in prison to be followed by five years of post-release supervision.
“This defendant trafficked guns along the Iron Pipeline and into our communities with no regard for the potential violence and carnage these weapons create,” Katz said. “I thank my prosecutors, the detectives and the undercover officer who helped build this case.”
Gaston is scheduled to appear in court on Sept. 3.