An eastern Iowa man who is a former medical student will spend more than seven years in federal prison on a weapons charge.
Thirty-six-year-old Steven Arce of Waterloo pleaded guilty to one count of selling a firearm to a felon after he admitted he sold an AR-15 rifle to another person whom he knew to be a felon. During the sale in 2018 Arce asked the felon if he could murder one of Arce’s medical school professors.
The felon told Arce he would need to talk to someone more qualified, and following the sale of another gun in 2019 — the felon arranged a meeting with a hitman. The hitman was really a police officer. Arce met with him and he offered to give the him a machine gun as a down payment on the murder.