Tulsa-area Gun Dealer Paperwork Reveals Illegal Straw Purchase Scheme, BATFE Chief Confirms
The owners of RJ's Gun Sales in Broken Arrow and Green Country Arms and Pawn in Tulsa believe it was their work in filling out the proper federal forms that led law enforcement officials to detect a scheme by which firearms were transported to Baltimore after the so-called "straw purchases" were made in Oklahoma.
The case resulted in federal criminal charges being filed against 10 people in U.S. District Court in Tulsa. All eventually pleaded guilty to charges related to an August 2003 to February 2004 plot that prosecutors said featured various Okmulgee residents buying firearms under the pretense that they were the actual buyers of the guns. Instead, more than 200 of the weapons were taken to Baltimore, where they were sold on the street for a profit, court documents show. Many of the guns purportedly were bought in Maryland by people who couldn't buy firearms legally because of their felony records or drug involvement. The straw purchasers, who at that time had clean records, would typically buy multiple handguns during repeated visits to the same dealerships in a short period of time.
Randy James, owner of RJ's Guns, said Thursday that once he noticed that an inordinate amount of purchasers were from Okmulgee, he immediately shut them off from further transactions. He said the buyers "put a real good con on me" by telling him a convincing story about how the guns were being used as part of a program to train security officers in Okmulgee. "I did everything in a legal manner," James said. "As soon as I saw a pattern, I shut them off."
One of the owners of Green Country Arms and Pawn said nobody in his organization would have sold firearms to the Okmulgee residents if they had known what was really happening to the guns: "Had we suspected that any type of crime was going on, we wouldn't have done it," said the co-owner, Charles Taylor. He said the purchasers' story about training security officers in Okmulgee seemed legitimate, down to paperwork they provided that seemed to back up their story. Anybody can be defrauded, he said.
Both James and Taylor said it was the paperwork they filled out regarding multigun sales that led to the Okmulgee group's activity being detected.
Jeff Cochran, resident agent in charge of the Tulsa office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that those forms prompted the investigation of the case.
The case resulted in federal criminal charges being filed against 10 people in U.S. District Court in Tulsa. All eventually pleaded guilty to charges related to an August 2003 to February 2004 plot that prosecutors said featured various Okmulgee residents buying firearms under the pretense that they were the actual buyers of the guns. Instead, more than 200 of the weapons were taken to Baltimore, where they were sold on the street for a profit, court documents show. Many of the guns purportedly were bought in Maryland by people who couldn't buy firearms legally because of their felony records or drug involvement. The straw purchasers, who at that time had clean records, would typically buy multiple handguns during repeated visits to the same dealerships in a short period of time.
Randy James, owner of RJ's Guns, said Thursday that once he noticed that an inordinate amount of purchasers were from Okmulgee, he immediately shut them off from further transactions. He said the buyers "put a real good con on me" by telling him a convincing story about how the guns were being used as part of a program to train security officers in Okmulgee. "I did everything in a legal manner," James said. "As soon as I saw a pattern, I shut them off."
One of the owners of Green Country Arms and Pawn said nobody in his organization would have sold firearms to the Okmulgee residents if they had known what was really happening to the guns: "Had we suspected that any type of crime was going on, we wouldn't have done it," said the co-owner, Charles Taylor. He said the purchasers' story about training security officers in Okmulgee seemed legitimate, down to paperwork they provided that seemed to back up their story. Anybody can be defrauded, he said.
Both James and Taylor said it was the paperwork they filled out regarding multigun sales that led to the Okmulgee group's activity being detected.
Jeff Cochran, resident agent in charge of the Tulsa office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that those forms prompted the investigation of the case.
Labels: 2nd Amendment, Gun Control, Gun Rights
posted by Mike McCarville @ 10:22 AM
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