Former gun dealer must stand trial
Stolen weapons found in his rundown house
Charges against a former North Fayette firearms dealer whose 586gun collection was seized as part of a civil court order involving the demolition of his house were held for trial Monday.
Gary Guyaux, 66, is charged with four counts of receiving stolen property and 15 counts of possessing prohibited weapons.
His attorney, George Saba, argued Monday that his client meets an exception under the prohibited weapons law as a firearms dealer and that the prosecution failed to prove Mr. Guyaux knew that four guns had previously been stolen.
“My client is going to sit in jail even longer, waiting for me to prove his innocence,” Mr. Saba said. “They can’t prove his guilt.”
District Judge Anthony Saveikis was not convinced and ordered that the case proceed to trial.
Mr. Guyaux was charged Sept. 6 by the Allegheny County Sheriff’s office. The next day, officials there touted it as the largest seizure of firearms in its history. But Mr. Guyaux had worked as a federally licensed firearms dealer for more than 40 years and over that time, he said, he collected hundreds of guns, dating to the 14th century, and including one from every war the United States fought in.
Mr. Guyaux was awaiting sentencing in June after being found guilty of a single count of terroristic threats involving an Animal Friends officer when Common Pleas Judge Michael DellaVecchia, of the civil division, ordered that the guns be seized.
Judge DellaVecchia issued the order as part of a separate case in which North Fayette Township was seeking to have Mr. Guyaux’s home on Noblestown Road deemed to be uninhabitable because of its conditions.
Mr. Guyaux’s sister had asked the court to allow her brother’s weapons to be transferred to another federally licensed firearms dealer, but the judge refused, and the sheriff’s office spent three days removing and cataloging them in early July.
As part of those efforts, sheriff’s Detective Donald Macjeka testified, each gun’s serial number and information were run through a national database. Four of the weapons -- submachine guns -had been stolen in 1991 from a gun shop in Gibsonia. Mr. Guyaux has said he has records proving he purchased them.
Fifteen of the weapons, Detective Macjeka said, fit the definition of a prohibited weapon because either they could fire automatically or they had shortened barrels.
Mr. Saba argued to Judge Saveikis that Mr. Guyaux is exempted under the state prohibited weapons law, which reads: “This section shall not apply to any
person who makes, repairs, sells or otherwise deals in, uses or possesses any firearm for purposes not prohibited by the laws of this commonwealth.”
But assistant district attorney Chris Stone argued that Mr. Guyaux had the obligation under the law to prove he met the exception by a preponderance of the evidence.
“There’s no question they’re prohibited offensive weapons,” he said. “He doesn’t have the records to prove he’s in compliance with the National Firearms Act.”
Mr. Saba argued that the prosecution misinterpreted the exceptions — the law spells out three of them — and that each one stands on its own. Mr. Stone, Mr. Saba continued, pointed out that only the first exception, applying to curios, puts an obligation on the defendant.
As for the receiving stolen property counts, Mr. Saba said there was no evidence from the prosecution that shows they were not lawfully possessed.
“We don’t know when he got them, how he had them or whether he knew they were stolen,” Mr. Saba said.
Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter @PaulaReedWard.