By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
When Paul Szabo purchased the Shooter’s Emporium in 2020, which is located just a short 45-minute drive north of Indianapolis, he got some “bad vibes” from an employee whom he later terminated.
Szabo’s fears were quickly confirmed. An in-house audit revealed that a brand-new Ruger American Rimfire rifle worth about $350 was missing, and evidence led directly to the former employee.
“I gave him the opportunity to return the rifle. He told us to f— off, so we called the police,” Szabo told the Second Amendment Foundation.
Just a few days later, in July 2022, Szabo also submitted a report to the ATF.
Six months later, the suspect was arrested for the state crimes of theft and forgery: 35-43-4-2(a)/F5: Theft-Use when property stolen is a firearm, and 35-43-5-2(b)(4)/F6: Forgery-Def, w/intent to defraud, makes/utters written instrument.
Now, nearly three years later, Szabo has been waiting for a trial date that never comes, and the suspect was hired by a competing gun shop, where he’s been very busy.
“He hacked all of our social media accounts,” Szabo said. “He hacked our special-order accounts. We started losing customers to the other dealer, who denied he ever worked there. The next thing that happened is the prosecuting attorney sent me an email and had me look at a document. It was a 4473 for the rifle in question, filled out, completed and signed and stamped by another local FFL. It had a different name that signed the 4473 for the rifle, which has been sitting in the police department’s lockup.”
Szabo is livid that the case remains in state court rather than federal court being prosecuted by the ATF.
“We just sent off another letter to the ATF asking how can I have a 4473 from a different gun shop. We’ve got more people involved – another FFL. Why don’t we have a federal case?” he asked. “It’s been three years. The local prosecutor pretty much doesn’t contact me at all. I really have a bad feeling about this.”
Szabo has no idea why the ATF isn’t prosecuting the case.
“I don’t know why they’re not charging him federally, especially with a falsified 4473 for a gun that’s sitting in Kokomo’s police department,” he said. “The trial has been scheduled but then moved six to eight times in the three years that this has been going on.”
The next trial date has been scheduled for late April.
Takeaways
Calls and emails to ATF’s national media inquiries line were not answered or returned, which is not a surprise. The ATF has only responded once to calls stemming from more than a hundred Second Amendment Foundation stories.
Szabo’s case should have been investigated solely by the ATF. The suspect should be facing federal – not state – charges.
The ATF would be more competent at dealing with a fraudulent Form 4473 than any Kokomo Police detective, because legally it’s not their area of concern. It’s a federal crime, after all, or at least it should be.
So, why did the ATF take a pass on this case, which occurred right during the middle of Joe Biden’s presidency? At least that question can be answered: It wasn’t big enough.
Szabo’s problems were allegedly caused by a former gun shop employee, who wasn’t the shop owner. There was no way ATF could strut in, close down another gun shop and force the owner to turn over all their guns, so they didn’t take the case. That much is definitely easy to prove.
Instead, the ATF told the local police to pursue the case, even though they lack the proper training and resources. Besides, at the time, the ATF was busy trying to show Biden and other Democrats that they were more than capable of doing their job and tackling the big cases, even though most of these went bad very quickly.
Just ask Russell Fincher, Mark Manley or Brian Malinowski’s widow if you need more information about how the ATF really works.
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