I don’t normally talk about what I title a piece I write. This time, I will, but only because I’m not really satisfied with my choice of words. Yes, Lawrence Michael DeStefano is being prosecuted by the state of New York, but I also feel like the word’s close cousin, “persecution,” is also applicable.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is bound and determined to go after this man over lawful products he sold through his website. He doesn’t sell completed guns, after all, mostly just parts and part kits, though he also sells incomplete receivers as well.
And it seems that part of the problem is that DeStefano wasn’t willing to play ball with James.
Orlando, Florida resident and Indie Guns owner Lawrence Michael DeStefano wants his 50,000 New York customers to know he will never give up their names, even though New York State Attorney General Leticia James has threatened to put him in prison for more than 500 years if he doesn’t comply immediately and furnish their personal information and purchase history.
As we first reported last week, DeStefano has been held in Florida’s Orange County Jail for nearly 90 days. He could be taken to New York’s infamous Rikers Island any day.
“I will never tell Letitia James who bought my guns,” DeStefano said Sunday night from the Orange County jail. “I care about my customers. They should know I will never turn over their customer data. That’s why James went criminal, but I will never give them up. They are law abiding citizens and do not need to worry.”
DeStefano’s firm Indie Guns was one of 10 self-built arms dealers James targeted because they allegedly shipped gun parts kits to New York. The other nine firms handed over their customer data to James, DeStefano said, but he refused. Instead, he decided to fight James and her unconstitutional out-of-state requests.
Two New York State detectives accompanied ATF agents in October, when they executed search warrants of DeStefano’s home and rental properties. The ATF agents seized 68 items from DeStefano’s home—including $500,0000 worth of gold Krugerrands and $110,000 in cash—but took thousands of gun-parts kits from his rental properties. More than 100 typed pages were needed to list all of the items seized from DeStefano. Most were Polymer 80 kits.
All of the charges leveled against DeStafano involve firearms themselves, with the exception of one alleging he sold a single frame to someone in New York.
DeStefano’s decision to hold firm wasn’t the smartest choice he could have made if he wanted to remain free, as we can plainly see right now, but I respect the hell out of him for standing on his principles in the face of potential prison time.
That’s not easy and I’m not sure that most of us would have the cajones to hold firm.
The thing is, parts kits aren’t illegal in New York in and of themselves. At least, not the ones that don’t have an incomplete receiver in them, though DeStefano sells both those with incomplete receivers and those without. Most of the kits lacking a receiver are nothing more than replacement parts for various firearms, generally Glocks. They’re perfectly legal in New York.
And without sales records from DeStefano, I fail to see how James had probable cause to say that he sold the incomplete receiver to a New York resident. If they already know that he did, then why do they need his sales records?
If nothing else, trying to bully him into potentially incriminating himself seems like a Fifth Amendment violation at the very least, assuming there’s more than a single person with a frame he sold that somehow ended up in New York. In fact, on ever level, I have massive questions about just what in the hell is going on here.
If he sold parts kits minus things that were illegal in New York state, or they can’t prove he did more than that, then why is he being prosecuted at all? Why has he been locked up, his assets confiscated by police, denied an attorney, and set to be extradited to New York, when they just wanted his records, and he decided not to play ball?
The process is the punishment in far too many cases, and I can’t help but see this as New York trying to bully someone who won’t make life difficult for his customers, most of whom did nothing wrong, just to cover his own backside.
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