Man Held on Charges of Lying on Gun Application
Saying they are pushing harder to get illegal guns off the streets, federal agents have charged a 22-year-old Norwalk man with illegally possessing a firearm and lying on a federal weapons application about his criminal background.
Denis Frank Maldonado of San Antonio Drive also was charged with violating laws prohibiting a person who has been convicted of domestic violence from owning a weapon, Gregory Gaioni, special agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said Friday.
Maldonado, who was detained pending $100,000 bond set by a federal magistrate Friday afternoon faces up to 20 years in prison.
The charge for lying on the application is the first for the ATF’s Los Angeles office under a federal law that was passed about two years ago.
“ATF is really following up on cases involving domestic violence and felons,” Gaioni said. “ATF wants to put out a message that such people should not even try to get these guns.”
In his complaint affidavit, Gaioni said that when Maldonado tried to buy a handgun at Southwest Jewelry and Loan in Norwalk, he reported on the federal application form that he had never been convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.
But the National Instant Criminal Background Check system turned up three domestic violence convictions in November 1997 in Whittier Municipal Court, the affidavit said. When agents arrested him Thursday, they found a gun in his car, which prompted the second charge, Gaioni said.
The maximum possible sentences are 10 years for lying on the application and 10 years for illegally possessing a firearm.
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