Waterloo Man Sentenced for Making Machineguns

A man who turned firearms into fully automatic machineguns in his home was sentenced on August 20, 2026, to more than one year in federal prison.

Nicholas Laurence Wilson, age 35, from Waterloo, Iowa, received the prison term after a January 30, 2026, guilty plea to one count of possession of machineguns.

Information from sentencing showed that Wilson machined three semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic machineguns. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives ("ATF") began investigating Wilson's firearm purchases after several guns that he purchased were recovered in connection with criminal investigations. ATF agents searched Wilson's house on July 16, 2025. They located the three machineguns and a machinegun conversion device, a drop-in auto sear, in Wilson's house. Wilson lied to law enforcement agents by indicating that he did not have any National Firearms Act firearms, which would include machineguns, in his house.

Wilson was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Wilson was sentenced to twelve months and one day of imprisonment and fined $5,000. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.

Wilson was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the United States Marshal on September 21, 2026.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kyndra Lundquist and investigated by a Federal Task Force composed of the Waterloo Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and ATF assisted by the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office and Cedar Falls Police Department.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.plLinks to other government and non-government sites will typically appear with the "external link" icon to indicate that you are leaving the Department of Justice website when you click the link..

The case file number is 26-CR-2001.

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