PORTLAND – A Portland man was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland to 21 months in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Jason Lee Morrill, 32, pleaded guilty to the charge on Sept. 18, 2012, and was sentenced before U.S. District Judge D. Brock Hornby, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release on Friday.

Morrill, a convicted felon since 2003, purchased a Taurus 9mm pistol and two magazines on May 2, 2012, in a private sale with a stranger he met through Uncle Henry’s online classified system. Moments later, while still in the parking lot where the sale occurred, Morrill sold the firearm for $100 to an acquaintance with connections to New York, according to court records.

Authorities in New York City reported a little more than a month later that the pistol that Morrill purchased and then sold in Maine was recovered in the Bronx borough of New York City near the scene of a shooting involving officers of the New York City Police Department.  At the time, no suspect had been identified as possessing the handgun, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in the press release.