'Average New Yorkers' selling ghost guns as side hustle: Queens DA

 Average New Yorkers are now peddling illegal ghost guns as a lucrative side hustle, the Queens district attorney says.

“We are seeing individuals with no criminal history assembling and selling ghost guns to supplement their legal income,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said. “It is a deeply troubling trend that threatens to make an already pervasive gun violence problem much worse.”

Among this unlikely pool of firearms dealers is Javon Fournillier, a 27-year-old Queens man with no criminal background, who allegedly sold seven ghost guns to people in New York City and Trinidad, according to court records. 

To circumvent New York’s ban on the untraceable ghost guns — which don’t have serial numbers and can be made with a 3-D printer or assembled piecemeal with shipped parts — Fournillier allegedly purchased components and ammunition from online sellers, and had them shipped to his pal Andrew Wilson, 27, in Conroe, Texas, according to the DA’s office.

Ghost guns do not have serial numbers and can be made with a 3-D printer.

Wilson mailed the parts and ammo to New York, where Fournillier assembled and sold the weapons from January to July 2022, raking in between $1,000 and $1,800 via word of mouth, according to the DA’s office and court records.

Fournillier and Wilson were indicted last month on more than 600 felony counts, including fourth-degree conspiracy and third-degree criminal possession, with seven counts of attempted criminal sale for Fournillier.

If convicted, Fournillier could face up to 22 years in prison, while Wilson could receive up to seven, the DA’s office said. 

Javon Fournillier of Queens allegedly assembled and sold seven ghost guns between January and July 2022.

Their indictments come as Bayside pharmacist Andrew Chang, 35, pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, following a ghost gun bust last year in which he had also been charged with criminal sale of a firearm.

Chang’s defense lawyer, David Cohen, denied his client was involved in any ghost gun sales, claiming he had only purchased the gun parts and assembled them without knowing it was illegal.

Actress Julia Fox’s 30-year-old brother, Christopher, has also allegedly been wrapped up in the ghost gun trade. Police raided the tony Upper East Side apartment the “Uncut Gems” star’s sibling shared with their father earlier this month, where they reportedly found a ghost-gun manufacturing operation.

Prosecutors said Julia Fox’s brother, Christopher, allegedly manufactured and sold ghost guns from an Upper East Side apartment.

Steven Hirsch

Fox had fabricated enough parts that it was clear he was selling ghost guns, prosecutors contended, noting the roughly $345,000 that flowed through his Cash app between April 2020 and January 2023.

This disturbing black market trend comes amid a state and city crackdown on these firearms that have flooded the streets — and wound up in the hands of killers.

As of Feb. 8, the NYPD has confiscated 36 ghost guns this year, according to city data. A staggering 463 ghost guns were recovered by police in 2022, compared to just 17 in 2018.

NYPD recovered 463 ghost guns last year.

For some, the potential financial windfall from selling these weapons is worth the risk of prison, experts said.

“Whatever slap on the hand he is gonna get, it’s not gonna undermine all the efforts and all the money he’s made thus far,” retired NYPD detective Rodrigo Caballero said about Fournillier’s alleged arms dealing.

The list of civilians-turned-criminals could grow, warned retired NYPD sergeant and John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Joseph Giacalone.

Law enforcement experts predict more once-law-abiding people could turn to selling ghost guns for money.

Paul Martinka

“Ghost guns have been on everybody’s radar now for over a year or so, and it’s only going to get worse as the technology becomes cheaper,” he said. “If ordinary people are doing this just to make money, then there you go.”

https://nypost.com/2023/04/01/new-yorkers-selling-ghost-guns-as-side-hustle-queens-da/

Half of Manhattan’s drunk-driving cases got dismissed in 2022 due to Albany reforms

 Drunk drivers are getting a free ride in New York City.

Nearly half of all drinking-and-driving offenses in Manhattan were tossed out of court last year – as dismissal rates soared over five times higher than they were before state lawmakers enacted a controversial evidence reform law in 2020, records show.

Of the 262 drunk-driving cases handled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office in 2022, 128 – or 49%—were dismissed on technicalities or for other reasons.

In 2019, the office, then led by Cy Vance, handled more than double the amount of DWI and other drunk-driving cases, yet only 55 — or 9% — of the 589 were tossed.

Critics blamed the startling statistics on the new “discovery” law overwhelming New York’s criminal justice system – which even the soft-on-crime Bragg concedes is a huge problem for prosecuting traffic offenses.

“This data makes clear that discovery is burying our prosecutors in paperwork that is often unrelated to the underlying substance of the case,” Bragg told The Post.

Almost half of the drunk driving cases handled by the Manhattan DA’s office were dismissed on technicalities or for other reasons in 2022.

William C. Lopez

Prosecutors are now required to turn over all evidence related to alleged felonies and misdemeanors within just 15 days of arraignments for traffic infractions and other petty offenses, and within 20 to 35 days for many other crimes.

Previously, state law only required discovery if the defense requested it in writing — and there was no rigid time frame.

The new rules have wreaked havoc throughout the five boroughs when it comes to DWI and other traffic-related prosecutions, according to multiple law-enforcement sources and records.

Of the 262 drunk-driving cases handled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office in 2022, 128 were dismissed.

Steven Hirsch

Some prosecutors even said they’re offering plea deals at an unprecedented pace to avoid having cases dismissed.

Mohamed Taher Hassan — whose father Taher Ali Hassan, 63, was killed in December 2020 by a driver on the Belt Parkway in Queens traveling at nearly double the speed limit while high on booze and cocaine — said his family “didn’t see the full justice it was expecting” because of the new discovery law.

Instead, Jason Bical of Brooklyn copped a plea deal with Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz’s office and was sentenced in December to 5 to 15 years behind bars on an aggravated vehicular manslaughter conviction in the death of the elder Hassan.

The new law prevented the family of Taher Ali Hassan (pictured) from seeing the justice they expected after a drunk driver killed Hassan in 2020.

“Action must be taken to prevent all this from happening, or at a bare minimum, to put laws where they were, which was then much easier for prosecutors to act,” said Mohamed Hassan, who praised prosecutors’ work in the case.

“They’re handcuffed by the new laws, and to them, it makes them not want to do these types of cases.”

Thirty-one percent of all traffic infractions in Queens were tossed out of court last year, compared to 17% in 2019, while the traffic-felony dismissal rate surged ninefold over the same period, from 2% to 18%.

The Queens DA’s Office couldn’t immediately provide data on drunk-driving offenses.

The dismissal rate for traffic felony cases in Queens surged from 2% to 18% from 2019 to 2022.

Stephen Yang

In Manhattan, the dismissal rate for all traffic offenses rose from 18% in 2019 to 44% the following year, when the new discovery requirements went into effect.

In 2022 — which was Bragg’s first year as DA — the rate reached 51%.

Manhattan’s traffic-felony dismissal rate — which includes drunk driving offenses — also rose over the four-year period, from 6% to 15%

Since 2019 on Staten Island, 263 traffic cases have been tossed as the overall dismissal rate there has remained steady over that period at about 3% to 4%.

District Attorney Michael McMahon’s office said the new regulations have reluctantly forced its prosecutors to put extra emphasis on getting rogue drivers to cop pleas to reduced crimes in order to avoid having cases tossed altogether.

Staten Island DA Michael McMahon said prosecutors focused on getting rogue drivers to cop plea deals due to the discovery law reform.

Paul Martinka

McMahon, a moderate Democrat, told The Post he’s “tremendously proud” of his office’s “low” dismissal rate, but believes the discovery law needs a complete overhaul.

“My dedicated prosecutors are successful despite the crazy and nonsensical discovery burdens placed on us by Albany,” he said. “Without question, it has made the work of holding these offenders fully accountable more challenging and unless necessary changes are made, will soon border on impossible.

“I guess that is what our Albany leaders want: mayhem and death on the roads, crime, and chaos on every corner, and complete freedom for the career criminals. They should be careful what they wish for. If not for heroic cops and persistent prosecutors, they will get it.”

The dismissal rate for all traffic offenses rose from 18% in 2019 to 44% the next year, when the discovery law took effect.

Seth Gottfried

The Brooklyn and Bronx District Attorneys’ Offices refused to immediately provide dismissal rates for traffic offenses.

Bragg — who once championed the evidence reform law — said he hopes to “continue to work” with his fellow progressive Democratic “partners” in the state Legislature “to find commonsense solutions that preserve the intent of the new law while ensuring we can achieve appropriate accountability in all our cases.”

The discovery law was part of a larger legislative package approved by lefty state pols that included bail reform — which Bragg continues to support — and which is widely blamed for fueling crime by putting suspected bad guys back on the streets.

The discovery law came as part of a broader legislative package championed by lefty state pols that included the controversial bail reform.

Robert Mecea

Bragg contends his hands are tied, but some of his biggest critics are not buying his excuses for why so many drunk-driving offenses are getting tossed — given what they describe as his long history of catering to criminals, and other far-left causes.

“Bragg is either lazy or this is the result of the discovery law,” said City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borelli (R-Staten Island). “I suspect that it’s a combination of the two, and that combination is letting drunk drivers booze and cruise with impunity.” 

https://nypost.com/2023/04/01/half-of-manhattans-drunk-driving-cases-are-being-dismissed/