MARTINEZ — A Contra Costa man has been charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor in an investigation that began when authorities found the defendant had been allowed to take gun elements and bullets from a county sheriff’s gun vary, court docket data present.
John Michael King was charged with two counts of assault weapon possession and one rely of illegally manufacturing a firearm, and is out of custody on a $200,000 surety bond, court docket data present. The costs have been filed in Could. King is subsequent due in court docket in August.
King, a volunteer with the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Workplace, was allowed to take 1000's of gun elements and ammunition from the Contra Costa Sheriff’s gun vary on Marsh Creek Highway in unincorporated Clayton, for “properly over a decade,” based on retired sheriff lieutenant Kenneth Westermann. The sheriff’s workplace launched an inside affairs investigation — headed by Westermann — after King’s ex-wife tipped off investigators, however the probe discovered no criminality and produced no written findings. A lieutenant testified in King’s divorce that he beneficial civilians now not be allowed to take gun elements and ammunition from the vary, because it defied “frequent sense,” based on court docket data.
However when the Contra Costa District Legal professional’s workplace was made conscious of the apply in early 2022, it launched a legal investigation, seized greater than 100 firearms believed to be King’s, and took roughly 20 different gadgets, together with sheriff’s division proof baggage — from instances as latest as 2019 — filled with ammunition, kits for manufacturing weapons and a Contra Costa Sheriff’s badge. DA’s investigators have been checking the chance that King was making unserialized weapons with elements he’d been allowed to take from the gun vary; they discovered one home made gun with no serial quantity, based on an inspector’s sworn assertion.
King has not but entered a plea.
When questioned about his gun assortment throughout 2020 divorce proceedings, King invoked his Fifth Modification proper to keep away from self-incrimination. He described lots of the elements as “rubbish” and denied being “some sort of weapons vendor,” however stated he had bought some gun elements on-line. In emails, he requested a sheriff’s worker to be looking out for “savage rifles, barrels and bolts,” including that he and the sheriff’s gun vary grasp wished to construct some, based on court docket transcripts.
The lieutenant who investigated the matter for the sheriff’s inside affairs division testified in 2020 that he appeared across the storage the place King’s weapons have been stashed and didn’t see something “overtly unlawful.” Each allegedly unlawful assault weapons, in addition to the suspected ghost gun, have been discovered by DA inspectors who searched the identical storage two years later, court docket data present.