Burgess sentenced to 11 years

Kim Smith

Monday, Feb. 11, 2002 | 8:52 a.m.

A former kidnapping and murder suspect was sentenced Friday to more than 11 years on federal firearms charges.

Jerald Burgess, 64, will spend 135 months in a federal prison. He had been convicted in July on two counts of being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm, one count of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, one count of possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of a felon in possession of ammunition.

According to testimony, Burgess met a undercover agent on June 22, 2000, in the parking lot of the Sante Fe hotel. Burgess allegedly sold the agent a .22-caliber handgun equipped with a silencer for $700. Burgess was arrested on Oct. 12 after he provided a federal informant, Franklyn Perry, a semiautomatic rifle.

Perry is now awaiting trial on 517 fraud-related counts for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme. He is also in jail on dozens of sex-related charges.

Twenty years ago Burgess was acquitted of kidnapping in the disappearance of 6-year-old Cary Sayegh, who disappeared from his elementary school in Las Vegas in 1978.

Burgess had led authorities to the spot where the boy's shoe was found, but he was never charged in connection with his death.