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A former Tabor City police chief was convicted in Pennsylvania this week of pointing a gun at a driver in a case of road rage, a prosecutor said.

Willie Roland Gore, 63, was convicted Thursday of simple assault by physical menace and recklessly endangering another person. He was sentenced to two years of probation, said Assistant District Attorney Anthony Gil of Montgomery County, Pa.

Gore testified during a two-day trial that he was fired from his police job in 1993 because he had signed the names of employees on time cards, Gil said. Gore's dismissal caused an uproar in the Columbus County town that year, with his supporters clashing with lawmen after a town meeting.

According to an affidavit by a Pennsylvania State Police trooper, a driver in July 2008 reported a man waving a gun at him during a confrontation on a highway in Upper Marion Township, Pa. The driver, Harold W. Moye, provided a license plate number for a Dodge Durango that he said the gun-waving man was driving.

Gore was stopped about an hour after the incident and immediately told the trooper, "I don't have the gun," the affidavit said.

Gore told police the gun was at his son's shop, and the investigator located a Ruger P85, three magazines and 43 bullets, the affidavit said.

Gore originally was charged with aggravated assault, harassment, making terroristic threats, possessing an instrument of crime with intent to use it, and reckless endangerment, records show.

During interviews with prosecutors, Gil said, Gore identified himself as a retired police chief from North Carolina. Gil said he was suspicious of Gore's story.

''I Googled him," Gil said. "That's when I found out that he was fired from the Tabor City Police Department, not retired."

Gil said he cross-examined Gore about his Tabor City job, and Gore said he had been fired.

Gore was Tabor City's first black police chief and held the job for the last six years of his 21-year career with the town's police. His supporters rallied around him following his firing, staging weeks of Saturday morning marches through downtown. On Oct. 12, 1993, about 100 people attended a Town Council meeting but weren't allowed to speak.

In a confrontation after the meeting, police fired pepper spray into the crowd and gunshots were fired. The town was under an 8 p.m. curfew for less than a week.