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Weapons charge dropped because of ‘snafu’
Juvenile conviction should have banned ownership of weapons
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Weapons charges were dropped in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in a drug case against a man who had 17 AK-47s because the proper paperwork barring him from owning weapons was never entered into a national database.
Assistant Prosecutor Ken Cardinal said Wednesday a juvenile conviction that would have barred Casey Johnson, 28, from owning weapons was never submitted to federal authorities, which means when he bought the weapons and ammunition and had them shipped to him through the mail, federal background checks failed to show he was not allowed to have the weapons.
Under the terms of Johnson’s plea agreement, however, the guns found when police served a search warrant at his home earlier this year will be forfeited to authorities. Johnson entered guilty pleas to counts of trafficking in LSD and possession of LSD. He is free on bond pending sentencing at a later date.
Cardinal said Johnson was convicted of trafficking in marijuana in Mahoning County Juvenile Court when he was 17, but the sentencing entry did not denote whether he would be barred from owning firearms. But the entry and conviction were never submitted to the National Crime Information Center, which gun dealers use to do background checks.
Cardinal termed the oversight “a snafu.”
The new pleas by Johnson will prohibit him from owning a firearm.
Cardinal said he decided to drop the charge because he did not think a jury would return a guilty verdict if the case went to trial because Johnson could claim he did not know he was barred from having guns.
He could also use in his defense the fact he was allowed to legally purchase them, Cardinal said.
He said had the guns been used in a crime, however, he would not have dropped the charge and risked an appeal. Case law shows defendants in similar cases have had their weapons convictions overturned on appeal.
A grand jury in March secretly indicted Johnson, of Carnegie Avenue, on the LSD and weapon charges, which came after a search warrant was served by police investigating drug activity. They found the weapons and the LSD in his home, but Cardinal said the weapons were a surprise.
“When the police found them there were boxes and boxes [of guns and ammunition],” Cardinal said. “They didn’t know he purchased him.”
Cardinal said he checked with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to confirm that Johnson’s records were never entered, and they told him they were not.