BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
LEXINGTON — A Tomahawk man has agreed to plead guilty in federal court to one of two gun charges after authorities made undercover purchases of methamphetamine and a shotgun at his Martin County home in 2025.
Jimmy D. Cornett, 61, pleaded guilty April 7 in U.S. District Court in Lexington to a charge tied to the May 9, 2025, sale of a Remington Model 870 Express Magnum 12-gauge shotgun to a confidential informant. In exchange, federal prosecutors agreed to dismiss two meth trafficking charges and a second felon-in-possession charge tied to two additional firearms allegedly found when officers arrested him Aug. 15, 2025.
Sentencing is set for July 9 at 1:30 p.m. in Lexington.
The Mountain Citizen reported at the time of Cornett’s arrest in August 2025 that officers executing a federal warrant at a home on Mary Perry Road in Tomahawk said the case stemmed from a “long and strenuous” investigation involving undercover purchases of both drugs and weapons.
Court records filed this month fill in the details of those alleged transactions.
According to the plea agreement, law enforcement used a confidential informant May 8, 2025, to buy 0.925 grams of methamphetamine from Cornett at his Martin County residence. During that controlled buy, the informant saw a firearm, the record states.
The informant returned the next day for a second controlled buy and paid Cornett $200 for 6.614 grams of methamphetamine, according to the agreement. During that same visit, prosecutors said, Cornett also sold the Remington shotgun to the informant for $250. The plea agreement says Cornett had the gun in his actual possession when he transferred it and told the informant he had another firearm as well.
That shotgun sale became the basis for the charge to which Cornett agreed to plead guilty. Because of prior felony convictions, federal law barred him from possessing the weapon. Prosecutors also say the shotgun was manufactured outside Kentucky and therefore had traveled in interstate commerce.
When officers went to Cornett’s residence Aug. 15, 2025, to execute an arrest warrant, they arrested him and found at least one additional firearm, according to the plea agreement. A superseding indictment filed Aug. 28, 2025, alleges Cornett possessed two more guns that day: a Keystone Sporting Arms Crickett .22-caliber rifle and a break-action, long-barreled, single-shot shotgun. That second gun charge was dismissed under the plea deal.
The superseding indictment accused Cornett of four federal crimes stemming from the 2025 investigation: distributing methamphetamine May 8, distributing methamphetamine May 9, illegally possessing the Remington shotgun May 9, and illegally possessing the .22 rifle and single-shot shotgun Aug. 15.
Under the plea deal, only the May 9 gun charge tied to the Remington shotgun would remain.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, up to three years of supervised release and a mandatory $100 special assessment. The plea agreement does not set a binding sentencing range, and the court will determine the final sentence after preparation of a presentence investigation report.
The plea agreement also points back to Cornett’s earlier federal record, which is central to the new case. To secure a conviction, prosecutors must prove not only that he possessed the shotgun, but that he knew he had previously been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison. The agreement cites Cornett’s 2010 federal convictions in the Eastern District of Kentucky for conspiracy to manufacture a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
That earlier case was more complicated than the new plea agreement’s shorthand description suggests.
In 2010, a federal grand jury charged Cornett and a co-defendant, James Perry, in connection with a methamphetamine operation centered on a stolen trailer on Cornett’s property at 6031 Rockhouse Road. Cornett was charged with conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, manufacturing methamphetamine or aiding and abetting that manufacture, possessing equipment and materials used to manufacture methamphetamine, possessing a .22-caliber rifle in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, possessing that .22 rifle after a felony conviction and possessing a 12-gauge shotgun after a felony conviction.
After trial, U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar ruled Aug. 26, 2010, that the government had presented enough evidence to sustain the meth-related convictions and the felon-in-possession conviction tied to the 12-gauge shotgun found in Cornett’s home. But the judge vacated two other gun convictions — one alleging possession of the .22 rifle found in a trailer on the property and one alleging possession of that rifle in furtherance of drug trafficking — finding the government had not sufficiently proved Cornett knowingly possessed the rifle.
In that ruling, the judge noted the .22 rifle was found inside a trailer about 80 feet from the house, while the 12-gauge shotgun was found propped against an inside wall near the back door of the residence. The court found there was enough evidence for a jury to conclude Cornett lived in the house and therefore constructively possessed the shotgun there, but not enough evidence to show he exercised dominion or control over the trailer and the rifle inside it.
That left Cornett with four convictions in the 2010 case: three tied to methamphetamine production and one tied to possession of the 12-gauge shotgun as a convicted felon. The current plea agreement cites those earlier convictions as proof Cornett knew he was barred from possessing firearms in 2025.
Cornett also agreed to forfeit property tied to the case, including the Remington shotgun, the Crickett .22 rifle, the single-shot shotgun and associated ammunition and accessories, according to court records.
The August 2025 raid also led to charges against Kasandra Hamilton, 33, of Tomahawk. The Mountain Citizen reported at the time that Hamilton was charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia after officers allegedly found suspected methamphetamine and paraphernalia within reach of a 4-month-old child inside the home. Those allegations are separate from Cornett’s federal plea agreement.