Gunshop owner found not guilty of illegal sales

McALLEN – Attorneys for a Starr County gun shop owner acquitted of illegal weapons sales charges questioned Monday why federal authorities targeted their client for prosecution at all.

Three days after a jury found Clint Morris Brown not guilty of 14 counts of making false statements in a firearms purchase, his attorney – Adela Kowalski-Garza – said two of the store owner’s employees actually conducted the questionable sales and that he was out of town during most of them.

“Mr. Brown wasn’t there,” she said. “It was their handwriting on all of the (sales) forms.”

Agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Brown in February 2008, alleging he had knowingly sold firearms to buyers who were acquiring guns for third party purchaser. Federal law prohibits anyone but the intended owner of a gun from purchasing the weapon.

Between January and April 2006, Brown’s storefront – Brown’s Sporting Goods in Rio Grande City – sold at least 19 weapons to people who have since been linked to a now-fired Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputy who was behind the illegal gun buying scheme.

Former deputy Rene Fuentes Jr. pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement in a firearms transaction in August 2007. He told investigators that he sold the guns he obtained to an associate who would later take them to buyers in Mexico, where it is illegal for most to possess firearms.

But while Brown signed his name to all of the federally-mandated purchasing documents associated with Fuentes’ buyers, Kowalski-Garza said she still is unsure why prosecutors thought that meant he knew the so-called “straw purchasers” who visited his shop were lying.

ATF agents did not return calls for comment Monday. But throughout the four-day trial, they testified that Brown’s signature on the forms suggested he carried out all the sales. ATF firearms regulations require the person who actually transfers the gun to sign off on the purchase.

While gun shop employees don’t necessarily need their own firearms licenses to approve such sales, Brown believed he – and not his workers – had to sign all of the documents, Kowalski-Garza said.

“They were looking at it as a strict liability thing,” she said. “You signed the forms, you go to jail. He made an honest mistake.”

Two of his employees testified at trial that they were aware of that the buyers were shopping for someone else, but claimed ignorance of federal firearms laws.

According to court documents, Fuentes, 27, kept meticulous records on his band of illegal buyers with notes on their Social Security numbers, dates of birth and hometowns. He deployed them to multiple gun shops across the Rio Grande Valley, prosecutors said.

But no other gun store managers have been charged in the case.

Fuentes currently faces up to five years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Nov. 16.

Had he been convicted, Brown could have faced a similar punishment range. But for now, he remains eager to put the whole case behind him, Kowalski-Garza said.

“This has been a horrible nightmare for Mr. Brown,” she said. “This would be a horrible nightmare for anybody.”

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.