http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0610.htm
Pawnshop's guns tied to gangs
By David Olinger
Denver Post Staff Writer
June 10, 2000 - A small Aurora pawnshop served as an important supplier of handguns to notorious Crips gang members in California, federal records show.
A federal grand jury accused ABC Loan last month of selling 66 handguns to a defendant in a triple murder trial, but the indictment never explained where the guns went.
Federal prosecutors supplied an answer Friday. In court papers, they described the little pawnshop on East Colfax Avenue in downtown Aurora as having a long history of selling guns that soon turn up in the hands of criminals - particularly gang members in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton.
They supplied a sworn statement from Adam Ging, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, that eight handguns ABC Loan sold to Randy "Rambo" Canister through a straw purchaser in Colorado have been seized by police in Compton and Los Angeles.
Los Angeles sheriff's deputies seized three handguns from a car "just five days after these and 12 other guns were sold to Canister on Nov. 26, 1997," Ging wrote.
One passenger in the car was Dante Owens, who, like Canister, is accused of murdering three people in Aurora in 1998.
Ging's statement identifies Canister, who acquired 66 guns from ABC Loan in 1997, and Owens as members of the Corner Pocket Crips gang in Compton.
Four of Canister's guns have since been recovered by the Compton Police Department, one from suspects in a drive-by shooting who "were arrested outside Canister's Compton residence," Ging wrote in the statement.
Federal prosecutors provided those details of ABC Loan's sales to an accused murderer in response to a defense motion alleging that the store owners are victims of a politically motivated prosecution. ABC Loan is seeking permission to resume selling guns while the indictment is pending.
The ATF analysis of ABC Loan's sales found that:
From 1996 through 2000, 109 guns were traced by police agencies to ABC Loan. On average, ABC Loan had sold those guns just 18 months before they were seized. That means the "time to crime" on ABC Loan's guns was less than one-fourth the national average, 76 months from retail sale to police seizure.
"The fact that these guns were used for criminal purposes soon after being sold by defendants is not coincidental," federal prosecutors wrote.
During the same period, women bought 39 percent of the guns sold by ABC Loan to customers acquiring two or more handguns at once. Nationally, women buy only 8.6 percent of the guns sold to multiple handgun customers.
These statistics are consistent "with the indictment charges that (ABC Loan) sold multiple firearms through female straw purchasers,"
Ging wrote.
ABC Loan reported 28 times as many multiple sales as the average Colorado firearms dealer during the same period. Many involved people who traveled from Boulder, Colorado Springs "and even out of state" to the Aurora pawnshop, Ging wrote.
"For example, one recent purchaser, who bought more than 80 guns this year, came from New Jersey and used a Colorado identification card that had been acquired the very day of the first purchase."
Federal prosecutors filed Ging's statement in response to a request from ABC Loan's owners to resume selling firearms while awaiting trial on federal weapons charges.
The pawnshop owners, brothers Gregory and Leonid Golyansky, and a cousin, Dmitriy Baravik, were indicted on 37 counts last month, all related to 18 incidents in which they allegedly sold guns to "straw purchasers" fronting for the real buyers.
Some sales were made to undercover agents. Six were multiple handgun sales to Stella Swift Spears. The indictment alleges she bought 66 guns for Canister, who was too young to purchase handguns at the time.
As a bond condition, ABC Loan's operators were forbidden to possess firearms while awaiting trial. The Golyanskys have reopened ABC Loan and Atlantic Pawn and Jewelry, their Denver pawnshop, but with all the guns removed from display cases.
Stephen Peters, a lawyer representing ABC Loan, contends that the bond condition deprived a licensed firearms dealer of a right explicitly stated by federal law.
That law says a licensed dealer may, despite a criminal indictment, "continue operation pursuant to his existing license . . . during the term of such indictment and until any conviction pursuant to the indictment becomes final."
Peters suggested the Golyanskys were deprived of that right in part because of the political environment in Colorado, where the 1999 Columbine High School massacre has been followed by an emotional debate over gun-control measures.
"Regardless of the politically charged atmosphere in which this firearms prosecution has arisen, federal law carries forward the presumption of innocence and entitles the defendants to continue with firearms sales at ABC Loan Co. while the prosecution proceeds," he wrote.
In an investigative series on multiple-handgun purchases, The Denver Post reported last year that 40 percent of multiple sales in Colorado traceable to criminal arrests were made by ABC Loan.
The Post described several police seizures of handguns from male juveniles and criminal suspects traceable to handgun purchases by women at ABC Loan. One was a 1993 purchase of a semi-automatic pistol by Erica Hurst, who bought it for Keith Drew.
Drew was arrested in 1994, along with other Crips gang members from Compton, Calif., after a shootout in Colorado Springs that wounded an ATF agent.
Copyright 2000 The Denver Post.
Pawnshop's guns tied to gangs
By David Olinger
Denver Post Staff Writer
June 10, 2000 - A small Aurora pawnshop served as an important supplier of handguns to notorious Crips gang members in California, federal records show.
A federal grand jury accused ABC Loan last month of selling 66 handguns to a defendant in a triple murder trial, but the indictment never explained where the guns went.
Federal prosecutors supplied an answer Friday. In court papers, they described the little pawnshop on East Colfax Avenue in downtown Aurora as having a long history of selling guns that soon turn up in the hands of criminals - particularly gang members in the Los Angeles suburb of Compton.
They supplied a sworn statement from Adam Ging, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, that eight handguns ABC Loan sold to Randy "Rambo" Canister through a straw purchaser in Colorado have been seized by police in Compton and Los Angeles.
Los Angeles sheriff's deputies seized three handguns from a car "just five days after these and 12 other guns were sold to Canister on Nov. 26, 1997," Ging wrote.
One passenger in the car was Dante Owens, who, like Canister, is accused of murdering three people in Aurora in 1998.
Ging's statement identifies Canister, who acquired 66 guns from ABC Loan in 1997, and Owens as members of the Corner Pocket Crips gang in Compton.
Four of Canister's guns have since been recovered by the Compton Police Department, one from suspects in a drive-by shooting who "were arrested outside Canister's Compton residence," Ging wrote in the statement.
Federal prosecutors provided those details of ABC Loan's sales to an accused murderer in response to a defense motion alleging that the store owners are victims of a politically motivated prosecution. ABC Loan is seeking permission to resume selling guns while the indictment is pending.
The ATF analysis of ABC Loan's sales found that:
From 1996 through 2000, 109 guns were traced by police agencies to ABC Loan. On average, ABC Loan had sold those guns just 18 months before they were seized. That means the "time to crime" on ABC Loan's guns was less than one-fourth the national average, 76 months from retail sale to police seizure.
"The fact that these guns were used for criminal purposes soon after being sold by defendants is not coincidental," federal prosecutors wrote.
During the same period, women bought 39 percent of the guns sold by ABC Loan to customers acquiring two or more handguns at once. Nationally, women buy only 8.6 percent of the guns sold to multiple handgun customers.
These statistics are consistent "with the indictment charges that (ABC Loan) sold multiple firearms through female straw purchasers,"
Ging wrote.
ABC Loan reported 28 times as many multiple sales as the average Colorado firearms dealer during the same period. Many involved people who traveled from Boulder, Colorado Springs "and even out of state" to the Aurora pawnshop, Ging wrote.
"For example, one recent purchaser, who bought more than 80 guns this year, came from New Jersey and used a Colorado identification card that had been acquired the very day of the first purchase."
Federal prosecutors filed Ging's statement in response to a request from ABC Loan's owners to resume selling firearms while awaiting trial on federal weapons charges.
The pawnshop owners, brothers Gregory and Leonid Golyansky, and a cousin, Dmitriy Baravik, were indicted on 37 counts last month, all related to 18 incidents in which they allegedly sold guns to "straw purchasers" fronting for the real buyers.
Some sales were made to undercover agents. Six were multiple handgun sales to Stella Swift Spears. The indictment alleges she bought 66 guns for Canister, who was too young to purchase handguns at the time.
As a bond condition, ABC Loan's operators were forbidden to possess firearms while awaiting trial. The Golyanskys have reopened ABC Loan and Atlantic Pawn and Jewelry, their Denver pawnshop, but with all the guns removed from display cases.
Stephen Peters, a lawyer representing ABC Loan, contends that the bond condition deprived a licensed firearms dealer of a right explicitly stated by federal law.
That law says a licensed dealer may, despite a criminal indictment, "continue operation pursuant to his existing license . . . during the term of such indictment and until any conviction pursuant to the indictment becomes final."
Peters suggested the Golyanskys were deprived of that right in part because of the political environment in Colorado, where the 1999 Columbine High School massacre has been followed by an emotional debate over gun-control measures.
"Regardless of the politically charged atmosphere in which this firearms prosecution has arisen, federal law carries forward the presumption of innocence and entitles the defendants to continue with firearms sales at ABC Loan Co. while the prosecution proceeds," he wrote.
In an investigative series on multiple-handgun purchases, The Denver Post reported last year that 40 percent of multiple sales in Colorado traceable to criminal arrests were made by ABC Loan.
The Post described several police seizures of handguns from male juveniles and criminal suspects traceable to handgun purchases by women at ABC Loan. One was a 1993 purchase of a semi-automatic pistol by Erica Hurst, who bought it for Keith Drew.
Drew was arrested in 1994, along with other Crips gang members from Compton, Calif., after a shootout in Colorado Springs that wounded an ATF agent.
Copyright 2000 The Denver Post.
