Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Police, DA to weigh gun cache charges
Home owner well-liked by neighbors
By Bill Fortier TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
[email protected]
Guns confiscated from Mr. Simulynas’ house cover tables at the police station in Auburn. (COURTESY AUBURN POLICE)
Enlarge photo
AUBURN — While local police will huddle with the district attorney today to
figure out what charges to bring against the owner of a Rochdale Street house where 85 weapons, about 800 pounds of ammunition and two boxes of suspected explosives were confiscated on Thursday, Anthony Simulynas’
neighbors said he was a very good man who has lived in the area for years.
“I’ve known Tony for a long, long, long time,” said Douglas Stewart, 77, of 412 Rochdale St., “and he’s
a great neighbor.”
Police said they do not believe Mr. Simulynas was planning to do anything wrong with his weapons. But they said he was storing them improperly.
“As far as I’m concerned, this was a disaster just waiting to happen,” Detective Sgt. Jeffrey A. Lourie said.
Detective Sgt. Lourie said local police got a search warrant for Mr. Simulynas’s house on Thursday after Paul D. Mateiko, 54, of 184 Highland St., Worcester, told Worcester police he had stolen a German-built MG34 machine gun from the 72-year-old Mr. Simulynas.
Worcester police found heavy machine guns, shotguns, pistols and ammunition in Mr. Mateiko’s house after they were called there by an ambulance crew responding to a Feb. 8 medical call. Mr. Mateiko faces four counts of illegal possession of a machine gun and possession of an infernal machine (C-4 plastic explosives).
Mr. Simulynas told police that Mr. Mateiko had stolen the approximately 4-foot-long, thick-barreled MG34 machine gun from him. The gun was used in the 1930s as a tank and aircraft defense weapon.
Detective Sgt. Lourie said
the two men were good friends at one time.
“He told us that he was welcome at the home and there were times he was left there unattended,” Detective Sgt. Lourie said of Mr. Mateiko.
About 2 p.m. Thursday, police, armed with the search warrant, went to the well-kept, neatly manicured white two-story house that Anthony Simulynas and his wife, Veronica, live in.
There, police said, officers found about 40 rifles, more than 40 handguns, two machine guns, and about 800 pounds of ammunition. They also took about 20 pounds of gunpowder stored in five coffee cans.
Police were still examining the weapons yesterday afternoon.
Two boxloads of explosives, each the size of a case of beer, were turned over to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Detective Sgt. Lourie said. He said he will try to get an update from ATF today.
Mr. Simulynas, described by neighbors as a retired engineer with severe rheumatoid arthritis, used to have a license to carry a firearm and a firearms dealer’s license. But then-Police Chief Ronald Miller revoked the licenses after Mr. Simulynas was involved in an incident in 1999 in Webster involving a gun.
Mr. Simulynas was told by Chief Miller to turn in his guns, but Detective Sgt. Lourie said yesterday
it was unclear how Mr. Simulynas responded. Nobody answered the front door at his house yesterday afternoon, and a telephone message was not returned.
Detective Sgt. Lourie said of the 85 weapons in the house, only three rifles were stored properly in a case. The other weapons, ammunition and suspected explosives, which police believe might include landmines, hand grenades, blasting caps and pressure detonators, were stored haphazardly in the house’s cellar, he said.
“Every time we turned around we found more weapons,” Detective Sgt. Lourie said yesterday. “I mean there was a lot of stuff there.”
“
He had no idea how many guns he had in the house, “Detective Sgt. Lourie said, adding that Mr. Simulynas didn’t know if any other weapons had been stolen.
“The weapons in the cellar were improperly stored, “Officer Lourie said. “There were no trigger locks; weapons were hanging from the rafters and on nails.”
It took five Auburn uniformed officers, four Auburn detectives, two Worcester detectives and three ATF agents more than five hours to remove all of the weapons, Detective Sgt. Lourie said. The ammunition, which he said comprised thousands of rounds,
filled the bed of a police pickup truck, and
some was taken to the police station in cruisers.
As of yesterday, it was unclear if Mr. Simulynas, who police believe was a collector involved in gun sales at one time, would be charged.
Police hope that a planned conversation today with the district attorney’s office, which was closed yesterday because of the holiday, will bring some answers.
Among the
potential charges are possessing weapons without a permit, illegal possession of a machine gun and possession of an infernal machine in connection with suspected explosives, described by Detective Sgt. Lourie as military-style ordnance.
Detective Sgt. Lourie said he expects charges to be filed by the end of the week.
He said Mr. Simulynas was not arrested because of health issues and because he was cooperative with police. He is not considered a flight risk, Detective Sgt. Lourie said.
Meanwhile, several of Mr. Simulynas’
neighbors said they liked him.
Clarence “Sonny” Stewart, 79, of 416 Rochdale St., and his brother, Douglas, said they were shocked to hear about the weapons, ammunition and suspected explosives that were taken from their neighbor’s home.
“I don’t have a bad word to say about him,” Sonny Stewart said.
“I’m astonished to hear this,” Douglas Stewart said. He added that he and Mr. Simulynas, who, he said, was afflicted with arthritis, would have a beer together.
“Just the kind of thing neighbors do,” Douglas said.
Sonny Stewart said Veronica Simulynas, known to people in the neighborhood as Ronny, could be seen frequently walking the couple’s French poodle on Rochdale Street.
Simulynas’ next-door neighbor, Lawrence R. Morse, knew Mr. Simulynas was a gun collector and dealer but was unable to do that in recent years. He said Mr. Simulynas went to his 50th birthday party in August.
“I was surprised to see the police here, yes,” he said yesterday afternoon.
“He’s a very nice guy.”
Another neighbor who didn’t want her name used said yesterday she wondered why so many police were at the Simulynas house on Thursday. She said she would frequently tell Mrs. Simulynas how much she liked her house.
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