Stag Arms owner pleads guilty to federal firearms charges, will get out of gun business
POSTED 10:03 AM, DECEMBER 22, 2015, BY DOUG STEWART AND JOHN CHARLTON, UPDATED AT 03:14PM, DECEMBER 22, 2015
HARTFORD — The owner of a local gun manufacturer has pleaded guilty to violating federal firearms laws.
The president of Stag Arms, LLC, Mark Malkowski, 37, pleaded guilty to a federal firearms charge. Per a plea agreement, Malkowski has agreed to pay a $100,000 fine, while the company will pay a $500,000 fine. Stag Arms also has to forfeit its gun manufacturing license, and Malkowski agreed to get out of the gun business and never return in an ownership or management role.
In July of 2014, the ATF conducted a firearms compliance inspection of Stag’s two New Britain manufacturing facilities, including a building which houses gun-maker CMT. A 2007 inspection found record keeping violations which the company was warned to fix.
During the latest investigation, ATF investigators found that more than 3,000 gun receivers –the part of the gun that includes the trigger and firing mechanism–were not properly registered, violating the National Firearms Act. Federal agents also discovered a total of 62 fully automatic machine guns and machine gun receivers which were either registered somewhere else or not registered at all. Guns were also recovered which had serial numbers “obliterated,” meaning numbers were purposely erased.
Furthermore, federal prosecutors said Stag Arms could not account for 200 guns, meaning they are lost. The fear is the guns wound up on the streets and could potentially be used in a crime.