Cops: 'Ghost' handguns, assault rifles found at Port Washington man's home

mikeyp

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I wasn't gonna post this one until I got to " including a double-barrel magazine that can attach to a rifle and fire 100 rounds of ammunition"

Cops: LI man hoarded 11 'ghost guns' in his home

A Port Washington man hoarded more than two dozen guns and assault rifles — including about a dozen untraceable “ghost guns” — and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his home, Nassau County police said Saturday, the day after his arraignment on weapons possession charges.

Nassau County police, State Police and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested John Dejana, 47, following a search warrant Thursday at his home on Slocum Avenue, authorities said.

Dejana, who had no licenses for any of the weapons, was charged with first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, police said. He was arraigned Friday in First District Court in Hempstead, where bail was set at $200,000 bond or $100,000 cash. He could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said.

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Dejana's defense attorney was not listed. He is due back in court Tuesday.


“We took these weapons … out of the home of someone who should not possess those weapons,” Singas said. “This defendant possessed an arsenal of firepower. This is deeply disturbing this firepower was in a home in Port Washington in our county.”

The FBI investigation and Nassau intelligence officers recovered 27 weapons including 12 ghost guns, five assault rifles and 10 other long guns and handguns, Nassau County First Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Smith said.

Ghost guns are classified as untraceable guns without serial numbers, or those that may be untraceable. Some guns are assembled through kits or 3D printers and may not be detectable through metal detectors, Smith said.

“I can’t tell you what he may have planned for all these weapons,” Smith said.

Authorities unveiled the haul of weapons and 3,000 rounds ammunition Saturday in Mineola to conclude “Operation Ghost Gun.”

Dejana, who has no prior criminal record, worked as a contractor and lived in the home with his wife, four daughters and two dogs. Detectives recovered an unloaded handgun with a plastic magazine and a pink Louis Vuitton holster in his 12-year-old daughter’s nightstand, police said.

“It is astonishing to think in one residence, these guns and this ammunition was being hoarded,” Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said. “Can you imagine the dangerous things that could have happened with this? It’s just unbelievable.”

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Dejana was also found with 30 illegal ammunition magazines, including a double-barrel magazine that can attach to a rifle and fire 100 rounds of ammunition, police said. They also seized a body armor vest, several large bags of marijuana and various vials and pills of anabolic steroids, they said.

Other guns included rifles with short barrels and silencers, attachable grips and other illegal modifications that violate New York’s SAFE Act, authorities said.

The ghost guns are shipped in kits and are legal because they are shipped in pieces, Singas said, but can also be resold illegally.

Authorities said Dejana purchased parts online, often used the weapons at firing ranges and showed off the guns on multiple posts online.

“While there are many responsible and licensed gun owners in our county, we allege John Dejana was not one of them,” Singas said. “When he wasn’t allegedly building guns in his home, just two blocks from an elementary school, he was flaunting them in hundreds of posts on Facebook.”

Singas said state legislation has been introduced to ban the kits, and last month, Attorney General Leticia James ordered 16 online companies to stop selling them.
 
As I looked closer they need to unload some of those magazines. JFC that’s how accidents happen...
 
Two whole blocks from an Elementary School? Good thing the guns didn’t walk over there.

This guy may have been stupid to share everything online, but it’s sad that this father of four’s life is ruined over something completely legal in most of the country and should be protected under the constitution. I feel for their entire family.

Well, completely legal in most of the country, except for this, without being a stamp collector:
Other guns included rifles with short barrels and silencers, attachable grips and other illegal modifications that violate New York’s SAFE Act, authorities said.
 
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As I looked closer they need to unload some of those magazines. JFC that’s how accidents happen...

Exactly. They're supposed to line up every individual boolit one by one for the photo-op. It's more scary that way.
 
What was the crime??

Must be somewhere in here:
... charged with first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

“We took these weapons … out of the home of someone who should not possess those weapons,” Singas said. “This defendant possessed an arsenal of firepower. This is deeply disturbing this firepower was in a home in Port Washington in our county.”
...
“I can’t tell you what he may have planned for all these weapons,” Smith said.
...
“It is astonishing to think in one residence, these guns and this ammunition was being hoarded,” Nassau County Executive Laura Curran said. “Can you imagine the dangerous things that could have happened with this? It’s just unbelievable.”
...
Other guns included rifles with short barrels and silencers, attachable grips and other illegal modifications that violate New York’s SAFE Act, authorities said.

The ghost guns are shipped in kits and are legal...

“While there are many responsible and licensed gun owners in our county, we allege John Dejana was not one of them,” Singas said. “When he wasn’t allegedly building guns in his home, just two blocks from an elementary school, he was flaunting them in hundreds of posts on Facebook.”

Singas said state legislation has been introduced to ban the kits, and last month, Attorney General Leticia James ordered 16 online companies to stop selling them.

Very confusing. Are the kits legal or not?
 
Must be somewhere in here:


Very confusing. Are the kits legal or not?

I guess they predict they will be illegal in the future, so arrest him now? Some kind of variation on an ex post facto law, where you don't need to wait for that future event to happen.
 
The guy up the street - Mike - owns a gas station. Any idea the dangerous things that could happen with one guy and all that gasoline?
 
The guy up the street - Mike - owns a gas station. Any idea the dangerous things that could happen with one guy and all that gasoline?

“I can’t tell you what he may have planned for all these weapons,”



I do feel sorry for this guy, and his family especially. But no license and then posting pictures on the internet???

Isn't it legal to keep them in your home?
 
I'm excited to see what happens when someone is arrested for one prohibited "ghost gun" - particularly a handgun - in his home in light of the heller decision. This patriot obviously pushed the boundaries.
 
Isn't it legal to keep them in your home?
I believe you are correct on that. But once you start advertising what you are up to on the internet then you run the risk of unwanted attention of the authorities. And at that point my guess is the first thing the authorities do in their investigation is check to see what licenses you may or may not have.

Again, I feel sorry for this guy, and maybe he didn't break any laws. But I believe that just having a permit might have saved this guy some legal fee's. No permit in this case is just not a good look.
 
No, I thought, like @massBRS said, that you don't need a permit to have one in your home. Having a photo of it or not is irrelevant, no? Just trying to understand. Heck, I don't know if this applies in MA, let alone there. Can one have a gun in the home without a permit in MA? I really should have picked this up by now, but really never had to think about it, since I've had a permit for many, many years.
 
OK, so I didn't read the whole article. Big difference between "having one in your own home", and selling them by mail, if that is the case. But then, why was he "charged with first-degree criminal possession of a weapon", and not with selling or dealing or whatever it might be called?
 
See boxes, labeled for shipping, with "Health Care" on the outside. P80's zip-tied for shipping. Doesn't take a genius to connect the dots guys.

Just the sceptic in me, maybe "Handle With Care", The "Care" is clear but I don't see anything else clear except "th", lots of word end in th.
 
Not sure those boxes are even his - police often do things like that checking them in as evidence. Those look like USPS boxes. How would a zip tie through a ship box not raise eyebrows? I think that could just be the locals itemizing the evidence.
 
Not sure those boxes are even his - police often do things like that checking them in as evidence. Those look like USPS boxes. How would a zip tie through a ship box not raise eyebrows? I think that could just be the locals itemizing the evidence.
I just think they are evidence boxes, the idea that they are usps shipping boxes comes from the red evidence tape on them.
 
I just think they are evidence boxes, the idea that they are usps shipping boxes comes from the red evidence tape on them.
Yeah, we're on the same page. That's not the guy putting his guns in packages to ship. That's the locals itemizing evidence.
 
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes... not to push my unpopular narrative of "every gun owner isn't a 2A patriot" but read between the lines a little here. FBI JTTF was on board for this. If it was a NY licensing issue on its own it would have just been local or maybe state police kicking the door, maybe FBI regional SWAT, ATF due to NFA? I don't know. But JTTF doesn't just go serving warrants to help local PD out for the goodness of their heart and inter-agency teamwork. That is a "Tier-1" law enforcement group. Play even more stupid games, win even more stupid prizes, whether NFA should be struck down or not (I think its asinine, and what it was enacted for simply doesn't apply to the modern day SBR, or how regulating suppressors matters), but its still the law, and a big one, much bigger than the Healey edict, and he broke that too.

Guy was building out Polymer 80's (nothing wrong with that) but then packaging them in shipping boxes zip-tied up to prevent rattle? Pounds of marijuana and steroids? I personally don't care for this stuff, but I could care less if an informed person uses them in the privacy of their own home, but it is currently still against the law. Dealing it even more so. The USPS can't open your packages without a warrant, read up on black-market trading, it's not some high-tech spycraft with dead drops and mules. These days drugs and firearms are sold online and shipped priority mail to the purchaser through the USPS and they are largely helpless to identify or prevent it.

Starts to look less like a 2A Patriot exercising his constitutional freedoms and more like a bonehead buying/selling goods on the Tor "dark web" using bitcoin. If this was all on the up and up, would have been very easy for someone with no prior criminal record to get a license, or maybe he was exercising his 2A rights and didn't believe he needed one, but hey keep a lower profile and don't live stream you shooting them on Facebook.

I'm all for ownership guys, but it's idiots like this that make it harder for everyone else, and they shouldn't get a blanket pass by our community just because they are firearms owners, especially if he was distributing on the internet to who knows what sort of people. When's the last time you bought a P80 with bitcoin on a darkweb browser? When's the last time you ever even considered doing that? We live in MA, but you can still get a Glock legally and relatively easily. It stands to obvious reason that if he was selling them, and if someone was buying them, it wasn't for legitimate purposes.

Just my .02

Either this guy was RETARDED or the story itself is just more legal domestic propaganda (gotta demonize those ghost guns)
 
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