TRENTON -- He dug in on pig crates hated in Jersey but favored in Iowa, changed his tune on standardized testing despised by conservatives nationwide, and took a stand on immigration that angered a longtime supporter and Latino leader.

Now Gov. Chris Christie has another decision that's reverberating beyond New Jersey's borders as he seeks to impress Republican presidential primary voters.

This one involves a 24-year old Middlesex County man who is pleading with the governor to help erase what he says was a mistake that shattered his dreams and "ruined" his life.

His name is Steffon Josey-Davis, and his story is about something that's front-and-center in Republican presidential primaries: gun rights.

The North Brunwsick man says he lost his job and his dream of becoming a police officer after he took a plea under New Jersey's strict gun laws for illegally transporting his registered firearm in the glove compartment of his car.

He has asked Christie to give him a pardon.

Gun rights activists are watching the case closely -- just as the Republican governor seeks to win their support.

Evan Nappen, an Eatontown-based gun rights attorney who represents Josey-Davis, said beyond asking Christie to pardon his client he expects to ask for help from the National Rifle Association's Civil Rights Defense Fund. The NRA fund focuses on cases that have the potential to overturn gun control regulations. At the same time he is also appealing his client's original unlawful weapons possession conviction.

Perceived as weak on Second Amendment rights by gun activists when compared to other potential GOP presidential candidates, granting a pardon to Josey-Davis could boost Christie's credibility with them. But it's not a cut-and-dried case because Josey-Davis has changed key details about his story several times when talking to the police and the media.

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Christie last week was snubbed by the NRA, which didn't include him among the dozen 2016 GOP hopefuls invited to speak at its annual convention in Nashville. That same field boasts stellar grades from the NRA's Political Victory Fund report card, a key Second Amendment voter guide. At the time of their last elections, GOP presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry all received A+ grades from the NRA. Rand Paul got an "A." Christie got a "C."



"That's like an 'F' to most Republicans," said Doug Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University and co-author of the bestseller, "The Nixon Tapes: 1971-72."



"He's going to have to take some cases like this," said Brinkley. "You don't want to manufacture those, but this one might be heaven-sent."



Christie has already started the process of courting the NRA with gun pardons. He recently granted a pardon to Shaneen Allen, a single mother of two who was convicted of carrying her legally-owned firearm into the Garden State from her home state of Pennsylvania.



"It's clearly a signal to the NRA that he's thinking about them and willing to be more sympathetic to their demands," said Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. "But they're going to want more."



The Josey-Davis case, however, carries a greater degree of ambiguity for Christie.



Josey-Davis had no criminal record and was on a shortlist to become a North Brunswick police officer, according to department director Ken McCormick. That all changed on Sept. 20, 2013, when he was stopped by Highland Park police for driving with an expired registration.



After being asked for his proof of insurance card, Josey-Davis disclosed to the police officer that he had his lawfully-owned firearm, a Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun, in his glove compartment, according to a dash cam video obtained NJ Advance Media from the Highland Park Police Department under the state's Open Public Records Act.



After disclosing the location of his gun, the video shows Josey-Davis was asked by a Highland Park officer, "Are you permitted to have that?"



Josey-Davis is heard answering calmly, "Yeah, yeah," adding, "I have everything...but the actual registration card, is actually at my house."



The officer is heard directing his partner, "Check the glove box. He has a firearm in there he's permitted to carry."



However, while he was registered to own a firearm, Josey-Davis didn't have a permit to carry a gun.



A few moments after informing the first officer about the handgun's location, a second officer approached Josey-Davis asking, "What do you have the firearm for, sir?"



"I work for Loomis," Josey-Davis answered. "It's an armored truck company."

Steffon Josey-Davis, dressed in a bullet-proof vest while at work as a driver at Loomis Armored in an undated photo the defendant posted on an online crowd funding website. (Credit: GoFundMe.com)

Josey-Davis wasn't an armed guard at Loomis. He was working as a driver in its Trenton office, according to files obtained from the Middlesex County prosecutor's office and an arrest report from the Highland Park police obtained by by NJ Advance Media. But he didn't need a gun for work and wasn't allowed to carry one. In fact, according to a supplementary investigation report written by the officers' sergeant, Josey-Davis told police he had only just purchased the gun two weeks before the traffic stop.



State law requires that a firearm "shall be carried unloaded and contained in a closed and fastened case, gunbox, securely tied package, or locked in the trunk of the automobile in which it is being transported, and in the course of travel, shall include only such deviations as are reasonably necessary under the circumstances. The firearm should not be directly accessible from the passenger compartment of the vehicle ... "



In addition to where it was stored, Josey-Davis was in violation of the law because his gun had eight rounds of ammunition in its magazine.



During a March 19 Fox News Channel interview, Josey-Davis said he stashed his still-loaded firearm in the car's glove box only "momentarily" because his 6-year-old sister "startled" him in the family's garage. Josey-Davis said he had forgotten to move it to the vehicle's trunk because of a "a mental lapse" -- suggesting he knew it was not permitted to be stored there.



"I reached for the glove compartment -- that's when I realized," Josey-Davis told NJ Advance Media in January.



But in the dash cam video of the traffic stop, Josey-Davis is seen asking the officers, "Now, when you do have a firearm, you're allowed to have it in your glove compartment, right?"



The video cuts off before a second officer's reply can be heard.



Josey-Davis did not return calls seeking an explanation for this and other inconsistencies in his accounts about the timing of when the gun was placed in the glove box. His attorney, Nappen, said he hadn't yet reviewed the dash cam video and couldn't comment on it.



A statement released to NJ Advance Media by the Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey noted that "during an investigation (Josey-Davis) gave four significantly different versions of the circumstances surrounding the illegal possession of the handgun."



New Jersey's gun laws are so exacting that even armed security officers and armored car personnel applying for a permit to carry a gun must first get their company to submit a letter stating the need for a firearm. Even when approved, they are often issued permits restricting them to carrying a gun only while on duty.

Prosecutor's files obtained by NJ Advance Media show that Josey-Davis had applied for a state-issued permit to carry a gun, but no permit had been issued by the State Police on the night of the traffic stop.



When Josey-Davis showed up at the Highland Park Police Department two days later without a permit to carry a gun, officers had no choice but to arrest him on charges of unlawful possession of a weapon -- a second degree felony.



At the time of the traffic stop, Josey-Davis was on a short list of preferred candidates to hire by the North Brunswick Police Department. But after he ultimately took a plea to avoid jail time, he was forced to withdraw his application.



"It's a case of 'lesson learned,'" said Josey-Davis. "It can cost you your career, your life."



Josey-Davis's conviction cost him his job. He said he resigned. Susie Tomlin, an HR executive at the armored truck company's Hamilton Township branch (where Josey-Davis once worked) said that any felony conviction precludes employment as a guard or driver at Loomis. He cannot vote, and has not been able to find work since his conviction.

However, if he were to obtain a pardon, legal experts say that he could apply for an expungement of his weapons conviction in as little as five years, a move that would allow Josey-Davis to apply to become a peace officer.



Josey-Davis' plight has gotten the attention of Second Amendment activists.



Chris Conte, litigation counsel for the NRA, called it "a typical New Jersey hose job." He said between 15 percent to 20 percent of all requests to the NRA for legal assistance "come from New Jersey - more than any other state."



When Fox News Channel interviewed Josey-Davis last month, the announcer said "one simple traffic stop changed his life and probably shattered that dream - all for being honest about his legally owned gun."



As he awaits word on whether the NRA will help fund his legal defense, Josey-Davis has been seeking donations via the online crowdfunding platform GoFundMe. As of April 13, he was a third of the way to his $25,000 goal.



On his GoFundMe page, Josey-Davis appears in a photo taken in the rotunda of the Statehouse in Trenton standing next to Brian Aitken, whose unlawful possession of a firearm sentence was commuted by Christie in 2014.



"I will not be neglected by politicians who claim to protect our rights but continue to allow such disastrous laws to harm gun owners," wrote Josey-Davis in his GoFundMe intro.

Brian Aitken (left) and Steffon Josey-Davis (right) inside the Trenton statehouse in an undated photo posted on Josey-Davis' GoFundMe online crowdsourcing webpage. Aitken had his illegal weapons possession sentence commuted by Gov. Christie in December 2010. Josey-Davis is seeking a pardon for his own illegal weapons conviction, and now plans to ask the NRA for assistance in his appeal of his plea. Both men legally acquired their firearms, but were prosecuted and convicted of felonies for transporting them illegally in New Jersey. (Credit: GoFundMe.com)

In his GoFundMe photo caption, Josey-Davis said he discussed Second Amendment rights and his story with the governor's staff. A spokesman for the governor declined to comment on whether such a meeting took place with Aitken and Josey-Davis. The spokesman also said the administration does not discuss clemency appeals.

In September 2014, the Christie administration took action to mitigate the state's gun laws. The Attorney General's office issued a memorandum creating a specific loophole for Shaneen Allen's case and others like it, helping an estimated 100 other defendants in gun possession cases avoid mandatory jail time through pre-trial intervention programs.



Christie had previously maintained that New Jersey's firearms laws were strict enough, and not in need of tightening. In 2009, Christie told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity "there's a big handgun problem in New Jersey" and voiced his support for some of the state's gun control measures. He maintained that position through last year. "The governor supports New Jersey's already tough gun laws," his spokesman told The Star-Ledger in 2014.



But at March 30 town hall in Whippany, the governor suggested he would consider loosening New Jersey's second-strongest-in-the-nation gun laws, if only he had a GOP majority in the Assembly and state Senate.



"Send me a Republican legislature," Christie said, "and with a Republican legislature you'll have a governor who will respect, appropriately, the rights of law-abiding citizens to be able to protect ourselves."



Steve Schmidt, a top GOP presidential campaign strategist, said granting a pardon to Josey-Davis might help Christie's 2016 chances.



"When you're in a field this crowded, and have less than an 'A' rating from the NRA, the only thing you can do on the gun issue is 'get religion' on it," Schmidt, who oversaw the day-to-day operations of Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential bid. "The reality is this: Should Christie be the GOP nominee, he will have gotten on the right side of the gun issue."



In the 2012 election, the NRA's Political Victory Fund spent about $11.1 million on gun-friendly candidates, and 60 percent of those candidates supported by the NRA fund won at the polls.



"He needs to remind people of his toughness," said Brinkley. "Ever since the bridge (scandal), he hasn't been able to project himself as tough. He needs to become the headline nationally again. Ronald Reagan would find personal stories to illustrate the larger case, and this is an ideal one for him."

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Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com