A guns dealer accused of working with Lake County officers to illegally buy and sell weapon parts on the black market will finally go on trial Wednesday as long as a possible federal shutdown doesn’t interfere.
Vahan Kelerchian, 55, of Richboro, Pa., is charged with lying to legal firearms sellers in order to get access to fully automated machine guns and laser sights that only members of the U.S. military and law enforcement groups are allowed to buy.
Federal attorneys said when Kelerchian was indicted in May 2013 that he worked with Joseph Kumstar, then the Lake County Sheriff’s Department chief deputy and Ronald Slusser, member of the SWAT team, to use letterhead from the department to make it appear Lake County was trying to buy these weapons.
The government claims that the officers would intercept the shipments before they arrived at the sheriff’s department and then worked with Kelerchian, who owns Armament Services International, to break the weapons up and sell their parts on the black market. The men are accused of buying 71 machine guns and 74 laser sights in 2008 and 2009. The government said in a recent filing it intends on introducing emails among the men that discuss their plans.
Defense attorney Kerry Connor could not be reached for comment.
Both Kumstar and Slusser have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify at the trial.
The trial has already been postponed several times, and it’s possible it could be delayed again on the eve of jury selection. Federal attorneys filed a motion Tuesday asking about what will happen to the trial if the federal government cannot come up with a budget deal by midnight Wednesday, and it shuts down.
The government suggests in the motion that they proceed with jury selection Wednesday but wait until hearing whether a shutdown will happen to swear the jury in. Both sides are asking that opening arguments go forward on Thursday if the trial is not postponed.
The case has seen a barrage of motions filed by both sides in the past few weeks. For instance, the government has asked the judge to ban the defense from trying to talk about how Kelerchian has worked with the ATF in the past, and the defense has asked that the government be barred from bringing up other cases to instill fears about the weapons at issue.
Defense attorneys have also renewed their motion to dismiss one of the counts against Kelerchian, conspiracy to provide false information to a federal firearms licensee. Connor argues in the motion that the Gun Control Act does not apply to machine guns except as to banning someone from transferring or possessing them, which Kelerchian is not accused of.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen denied a similar motion earlier this summer, though, and federal attorneys said Tuesday in a response to the newest motion that machine guns are included in the rest of the act as a firearm.
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