I am retired now. I do not know the disposition of the case, or whether or not it has been officially closed. Not being in the loop anymore precludes me from gaining access to any official records concerning the investigation. Consequently, what information I do have, is confidential, and I am not at the liberty to discuss it. There was a brief story of the account in the local rags, NY Daily News, NY Times, NY Post, to name a few. If you wish to pursue the incident, those rags are a good place to start. Perhaps you can contact the NYPD homicide division at the NYPD headquarters building in lower Manhattan, NYC. The ATF based in lower Manhattan was also part of the investigation. Perhaps an inquiry to them would help. That's the best I can do for you.
Maybe regarding this isolated case this is the best one can do but regarding actual prosecuted crimes committed where silencers are mentioned, well, we can do better than that.
And we don't need any special hot shot credentials to do so.
We also don't need to call NYPD or the anti-gun NY liberal press to get unbiased information on criminal cases involving firearms.
Actually, I've visited 1 Police Plaza, in Manhattan, many times and seen with my own eyes the disrespect shown by officers and clerks, of the Licensing Division, towards the law-abiding applying for a permit. The only thing that you have to do is walk into their buildings for them to start looking at you like a criminal. And this was during the scum Guiliani administration. Today under the anti-gun twerp Bloomberg things are 10 times worse. And Newark PD is not far behind. I dealt with them, on a daily basis, before, during and after 911.
It's true that crimes have been committed by folks possessing silencers (legally or otherwise) but statistics do show that the number of crimes committed with a firearm that hosted a silencer is almost null and NOT an LE or a society concern.
Information on criminal silencer use and conviction is not available from ATF as the machinegun reports.
The Lexis/Westlaw database contains 153 cases over the past ten years in which the evidence suggests a silencer was used for a criminal purpose — including unlawful possession of a silencer where no other crime was committed. That gives an average of about 15 reported cases each year, and assuming this represents close to half of all prosecutions, one can assume 30-40 total cases per year (to be conservative). This is out of 75-80,000 overall federal criminal prosecutions each year. Overall numbers certainly suggest that
silencers are a very minor law enforcement problem. Moving from the overall numbers and looking at more specific offences,
it appears that use of silencers in truly violent crime is even more rare. Thirty-six of the 153 defendants (23%) had prior criminal records, although many were for relatively minor offenses. For 17 of those the prior offense was not listed.
The 19 whose prior records were listed broke down as follows (if there was more than one prior then the most serious prior conviction is listed): 4 drug trafficking, 3 misdemeanors (disorderly conduct, domestic violence, possession of marijuana), 2 felony possession of drugs (but not trafficking), 2 assault, 1 murder, 1 arson, 1 rape, 1 burglary, 1 attempted grand larceny, 1 DWI, 1 carrying concealed weapon, 1 (previ-ous) possession of silencer. So even for the 23 percent of defendants with a prior record, almost half of them (8 out of 19 reported) had fairly trivial, non-violent prior crimes. There were 20 cases (13%) in which possession of silencer was the only charge (state or federal). These would not be subject to the 30-year enhanced sentence. Thirty-seven cases (24%) included other illegal weapons charges (such as possession of “short barrel” rifle, or an automatic weapon), but by a person who had
no criminal record and no apparent intention to use the weapons for a violent purpose. Not surprisingly, many people who manufacture silencers also manufacture other firearms, which is illegal without a permit. There were 50 cases (32%) in which silencers were found during drug raids, and in which drug trafficking was the most serious charge. Almost without exception the silencer was simply found on the premises when the residence was searched for drugs. In these 50 cases there is no evidence that the silencer found during the drug raid
was ever used to injure anyone. In 32 cases (21%) some crime other then drug trafficking was charged: 7 Continuing Criminal Enterprise, 6 robbery, 5 illegal sale of weapons, 4 murder, 2 attempted murder, 2 conspiracy to murder, 2 extortion, 1 sexual assault (state crime), 1 bank robbery, 1 assault and 1 burglary (state crime). If we include sale of weapons in the victimless category (along with possession of illegal weapons, drug trafficking, and mere non-violent possession of weapons by a felon), then more than 80 percent of federal silencer charges are for non-violent, victimless crimes. If we consider all those convicted of Continuing Crimianl Enterprise, CCE, extortion, robbery and conspiracy as “professional” criminals, these still represent less than 20 percent of defendants prosecuted. In 14 cases of 160 silencer prosecutions (about 9%) the defendant was acquitted of all charges (7 cases) or the case was dismissed due to illegal search (7 cases). It should also be noted that there were 3 other acquittals in which the defendant was acquitted of use of a silencer during a crime but convicted of simple possession of an unregistered silencer. The guns found with silencers were overwhelmingly small caliber, low power semi-automatic pistols. Of the reported cases, 46 listed the caliber of the firearm associated with the silencer. For those cases in which caliber is noted, 52 percent were .22, 32 percent were 9mm, 10 percent were .38, 2 percent were .25 caliber, 2 percent were .45 caliber, and 2 percent were either 9mm or .22. So of the 46 cases with listed calibers we have only one large caliber handgun—the .45. While a 9 mm could make up for its small caliber by using a higher-velocity bullet, a silenced 9mm would need to fire a subsonic round and thus would not be a deadly as a non-silenced 9mm.
You see this, is not a simple question to answer. Specially with one case, which as TPAW mentioned, is still under investigation.
