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A Pasadena police officer who formerly served as spokesman for the department turned himself in to authorities Friday after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of selling dozens of guns across Southern California without a license. Lt. Vasken Gourdikian faces four felony counts, including illegally possessing a short-barreled rifle and providing false statements while buying firearms, according to the indictment filed Thursday in U.S. District Court. {snip} In an online forum, he posted ads offering firearms and described the guns as "off roster" and sold an array of pistols and semiautomatic rifles across Southern California, the court papers...

Full title: Confirmed: Obama DOJ Failure to Arrest Known Straw Purchasers Led to Murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico According to a new inspector general report an illegal gun trafficking program similar to Operation Fast and Furious, which took place under President Obama's Department of Justice, led to the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata in 2011. First, the background: On February 15, 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents Victor Avila and Jaime Zapata were returning to Mexico City from Matehuala, Mexico when their armored SUV came under attack near the town of Santa Maria del Rio,...

US Attorney recommends 8 years in prison for Leland Yee Known as being "tough on guns," disgraced former California State Sen. Leland Yee may get 8 years in federal prison for his 2015 plea to racketeering charges. Yee, ironically known for his gun control legislation, was arrested in 2014 on a host of charges including plotting to smuggle guns into the country via Islamic terror groups. This left many gun control advocates, who up until that time held the San Francisco-based politician as a champion in the crusade for tougher gun laws, dismayed. Facing potentially the rest of his life...

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Accused Chinatown gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow has refused to sign on to a protective order that will allow defense attorneys to receive evidence from federal prosecutors, including audio recordings and video surveillance, from a five-year undercover investigation that led to his arrest, and the arrest of 26 others in March. Attorneys for the federal government on Thursday filed a motion to compel Chow to cooperate, noting that nearly all the other defendants have signed on, and only one other defendant has not signed because of a likely substitution of counsel in the near future. According...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The California State Senate held an "ethics refresher course" for its members after federal indictments were issued against two senators and a third was convicted. Senate leaders are hoping to regain the public's trust. The purpose of the course is to teach members and their staffs to avoid potentially compromising situations. It's the latest in a series of moves by senate leaders aimed at putting political distance between them and their colleagues facing criminal charges. The leader of California's state senate stopped all regular business on Wednesday so everyone could go "back to school" in a...

**SNIP** The San Francisco Democrat was a fairly high-profile member of the California Legislature, but not a flamboyant one or one who was the subject of gossip and rumor. And that’s probably why the news in March landed with such a bombshell, when the 66-year old former psychologist was arrested and charged with not only corruption, but also with allegedly participating in a scheme to smuggle illegal weapons into the United States. The irony was impossible to miss: gun trafficking charges against a Democrat who made a name for himself as a fierce advocate of gun control, a politician who...

<p>Arriving now in the mailboxes of more than 10.6 million California voter households: Sen. Leland Yee’s pledge to fight corruption.</p> <p>Yee, indicted earlier this month on corruption and conspiracy charges, paid $6,250 for a statement touting his secretary of state candidacy in the voter information guides that began going out Thursday for the June 3 primary.</p>

The federal corruption and bribery charges leveled against state Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco mark the third embarrassing scandal this year for Senate Democrats and their party, which control both houses of the state Legislature and every statewide office in California.Coming on the heels of recent tangled legal troubles of two other high-profile Los Angeles County Democratic state senators - Ron Calderon of Montebello and Rod Wright of Baldwin Hills - Yee's arrest may now hand the beleaguered state Republican Party an opening in a midterm election year, political observers say.

On August 23, 2011 the FBI arrested Imam Abu Taubah aka Marcus Dwayne Robertson. The charge was possession of a firearm by a previously convicted felon, Case Number: 6:11-mj-1380 Attached to Imam Abu Robertson’s case is a Notice of Intent To Use Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Information (FISA). The U.S. Government’s intention to use its FISA powers signals probable cause to charge Imam “Taubah” Robertson “the target of such search is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power”. The facts presented in these filed charges leads this reporter to suspect an element of foreign intrigue may be...

Teacher, cop charged with gun trafficking Friday, February 18, 2005 NEWARK - A schoolteacher and his wife, who is a police officer, were arrested Thursday as part of an undercover operation to crack a gun trafficking ring that included the teacher's brother-in-law, authorities said. Five rifles were sold for $9,200 over the course of the investigation, according to court papers. FBI agents found a 9mm handgun in the coat pocket of the teacher, William Mayes, as he was preparing to leave home for his ninth-grade class at Success Academy, part of West Side High School in Newark, Special Agent Steve...

Press Release U.S. Attorney District of Massachusetts United States Attorney's Office John Joseph Moakley, U.S. Courthouse 1 Courthouse Way, Suite 9200 Boston, MA 02210www.usdoj.gov/usao Contact: Michael J. Sullivan Phone: 617-748-3139 Boston, MA - Charges were announced today in three federal gun trafficking cases. The cases illustrate three common ways in which guns make their way illegally onto city streets and into the hands of those who could never buy them legally. United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan; William J. Hoover, Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Kathleen O'Toole, Commissioner of the Boston Police...

Student gun sales armed N.J. gang, authorities sayAn indictment alleges collegians were used to funnel dozens of weapons from an Ohio store to Newark.By Troy GrahamInquirer Staff Writer   Federal prosecutors in New Jersey have indicted the owner of an Ohio gun store and three members of a violent Newark street gang in the first gun-trafficking case of its kind.The merchant sold guns to intermediaries, all of them students or former students at Wilberforce University, a small private school in Ohio. The students then funneled the guns to the Double ii Bloods street gang, authorities said.The case, which will...