'Audacious scheme': YouTuber sentenced to federal prison for advertising 'auto key card' that would turn semi-automatic rifles into machine guns

A YouTuber with over 180,000 subscribers will spend the next five years behind bars for advertising a device known as an "auto key card" which can be used to turn a semi-automatic rifle into an illegal machine gun, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Prosecutors allege that Matthew Raymond Hoover, 39, of Wisconsin, posted videos talking about the device on his CRS Firearms YouTube page, which led to a "substantial increase" in sales. Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin, who manufactured the devices, was sentenced to five years and eight months and also must forfeit the $68,000 he made from sales, prosecutors said. A jury found the pair guilty in April.

Court records say Ervin made about 300 prototypes of the device in October 2020 and Hoover started advertising it about a month later. In all Ervin sold about 2,000 of the devices, which look similar to a bottle opener, in just a few months, the feds said. Ervin set up a website where the devices could be purchased.

"Subsequent investigation revealed that Ervin was running an online business selling machinegun conversion devices, known as lightning links, etched into metal cards, which he referred to as Auto Key Cards," prosecutors said. "Ervin described the Auto Key Card as a 'pen holder,' a 'novelty,' and a 'political sculpture.'"

One of Hoover's lawyers, Matt Larosiere, said the government's stance was "patently absurd" and likened the device to a drawing. Larosiere said many of the devices were ineffective.

"If I sold you a McDonald's cup saying 'this is a hand grenade,'" he said, "'I would like to sell this hand grenade to you.' And you purchased it from me. Should I be guilty of a hand grenade?"

He also said the statements made by his client on the YouTube videos are protected by free speech.

Ervin's bank alerted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in January 2021 that he may be trafficking in machine gun conversion devices.

ATF agents, along with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, put Ervin under surveillance in February 2021 and saw him dropping off "dozens of packages" at a Jacksonville-area post office. All of the packages contained the devices, according to prosecutors. A firearms enforcement officer was able to take out the lightning link from the auto key card and make a semi-automatic AR-15 automatic in about 40 minutes, prosecutors said. Larosiere argued that the officer was only able to use the device by making his own design and the rifle malfunctioned

Hoover's YouTube page features his musings on everything from gun laws to how-to shooting demonstrations. In one of his videos, Hoover allegedly described how someone could cut the lightning link out and "drop it in your receiver, scratch your full auto itch, throw it away when you're done" and "no one's the wise."

When ATF agents raided Ervin's home they found auto key cards containing more than 1,500 lightning links. In total, the evidence showed that the conspiracy involved at least 6,600 individual lightning links.

After the raid of Ervin's home, Hoover posted a video, apparently before he was charged, saying "I gotta admit, I would not want to be the prosecution." He described the key card as a drawing.

"I never thought somebody could get arrested for having a drawing," he said. "If I were to draw a machine gun under current law or how the law is currently being enforced I would be arrested for manufacturing a machine gun."

Ervin paid Hoover for the advertisements by sending cash and a Louis Vuitton purse through the mail, prosecutors allege. Multiple people who bought the key card testified at the trial that they purchased them so they could make their AR15s into machine guns, prosecutors said.

"Investigating this case required dedication and tenacity on behalf of ATF's Jacksonville Field Office and our partner agencies on this matter — the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office," ATF Tampa Field Division Special Agent in Charge Kirk Howard said in a statement. "Our work was necessary to prove the true nature of the Auto Key Cards being sold by Ervin and Hoover and disrupt their audacious scheme to circumvent federal firearms laws."

Hoover's attorneys say they plan to appeal the guilty verdict.