Countywide : April Sentencing in Weapons Case

An Oxnard man is scheduled to be sentenced on April 6 following his conviction on two counts of federal firearms violations.

Robert Thomas Ward, 45, the son of a former Oxnard mayor, was found guilty Wednesday on one count of possessing 10 unregistered machine guns and two silencers, and one count of possessing silencers that do not carry serial numbers.

Ward, who is being held without bail in a federal prison, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. Jury deliberations took only 30 minutes following a one-day trial.

Ward was arrested in October after a large cache of weapons and 27,000 rounds of ammunition were found at his Oxnard residence.

Ward also was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service for allegedly threatening to assassinate President Bush.

David Waltz, a neighbor who notified authorities about the threat, said Ward claimed to have been a mercenary in Rhodesia.

Waltz on Thursday said Ward had told him that he considered shooting Bush twice last year, once while the President played golf with Ronald Reagan in Thousand Oaks and again at the November dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley.

The Secret Service decided after an investigation not to charge Ward with threatening the President’s life.

“Tom was like a wanna-be,” said Waltz, 31, a former member of the Army’s special forces. “I almost felt he was trying to recruit me into something.”