WINCHESTER — A Winchester man will serve two years in federal prison for illegally buying a handgun that was allegedly used by his brother to kill a college student during a drive-by shooting in Washington, D.C.

Gerald Kendrick Oxner, 25, of Woodstock Lane, has been sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Charlottesville to 24 months behind bars for making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm. Judge Thomas T. Cullen recommended to the Federal Bureau of Prisons that Oxner serve his time in its medium-security facility in Petersburg, West Virginia, in order to remain relatively close to his family.

Cullen also ordered Oxner to pay a $100 fine and serve three years on supervised probation following his release from custody.

Oxner pleaded guilty to the firearm charge on Sept. 6. According to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Virginia, the defendant lied on Jan. 21, 2021, when he purchased a Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun for about $475 from a Front Royal farm-supply store that also sells firearms, Rural King, at 465 South St.

Oxner did not disclose he was buying the handgun for someone other than himself, and he provided a fake Woodbridge address on a form required to make the purchase, court records state. The transaction, referred to by authorities as an illegal straw purchase, was documented in security camera footage and verified by receipts showing that Oxner bought the firearm using the debit card of his younger brother, 23-year-old Terrance Anthony Oxner of Manassas.

Court records state the 9mm handgun purchased by Gerald Oxner had its serial number obliterated and was allegedly used by Terrance Oxner four days later, on Jan. 25, 2021, during a mass shooting that killed one person and wounded three others in southeast Washington, D.C.

According to information from D.C. Superior Court and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, homicide victim Edward Elontay Wade, 22, of southeast Washington, was a biology student at Virginia Union University in Richmond who was back home in Washington visiting family. Shortly before 9 a.m. on Jan. 25, 2021, his mother drove him to a convenience store near 14th Street and Good Hope Road SE and waited in the vehicle while Wade went inside to buy something to eat.

As Wade exited the store, he walked into a hail of gunfire coming from a white Honda Accord with as many as four people inside, police records state. Within seconds, Wade was dead and four other people had bullet wounds. Investigators have not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting or stated if Wade or any of the wounded individuals were the intended targets.

Paramedics transported two of the gunshot victims to a local hospital, and the other two sought treatment on their own. One of the men who sought treatment in the hours following the shooting was Terrance Oxner, court records state. He was taken into police custody, charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bond.

One month prior to the shooting, on Dec. 21, 2020, Terrance Oxner was arrested in Washington on a charge of assault with a firearm. There are no online court records stating what became of that charge or why the suspect was not being held in jail on the day of the drive-bay shooting.

In addition to murder, Terrance Oxner is currently charged with 15 other offenses related to the shooting including conspiracy to commit murder while on supervised release, possessing a firearm used to commit a violent crime, assault with intent to kill while armed and unlawful possession of a firearm. He faces up to life in prison when his trial begins on Oct. 23 in D.C. Superior Court.

The only other person charged in the case is 17-year-old Aaron Adgerson of southeast D.C. Adgerson was arrested on March 22, 2021, and charged as an adult with first-degree murder. He is being held without bond and scheduled to be tried alongside Terrance Oxner on Oct. 23.

Investigators have said Gerald Oxner made a total of eight illegal straw purchases of firearms on behalf of people who would not be able to pass background checks, including his brother. The guns were bought on eight separate occasions from March 2020 to October 2021, and two of the firearms — including the one allegedly used in the Jan. 25, 2021, drive-by shooting — were subsequently recovered by police during criminal investigations. None of the guns were found during a search of Gerald Oxner's home on Nov. 8, 2021.