Pa. man charged with buying guns stolen from U. S. facility

A Bedford County man has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of buying hundreds of guns and thousands of gun parts from a former security guard at a West Virginia gun disposal facility maintained by the U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Richard Adam Schreiber, 38, of Everett, was named Tuesday in a multiple- count indictment handed up in U. S. District Court in Johnstown.

He remains free on a $ 10,000 bond pending an Aug. 27 hearing in federal court.

Mr. Schreiber is accused of buying guns, gun components and ammunition from Christopher Lee Yates, a former contract security guard at ATF’s national disposal facility in Martinsburg, W. Va.

ATF uses the facility to collect guns and ammo that have been seized by law enforcement agencies in criminal cases and designated for destruction.

Yates was indicted in March in West Virginia, and he pleaded guilty in April to stealing thousands of guns and firearm parts. He is awaiting sentencing.

The U. S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh said ATF began an investigation in February when a gun was seized in Philadelphia with different serial numbers, one of which was for a slide that had been purportedly destroyed at the Martinsburg facility.

ATF agents discovered that Yates had stolen five machine guns, 115 pistols, 3,000 slides and ammunition.

The charges against Mr. Schreiber say he bought them from Yates and then sold them online from his house. During the investigation, ATF seized nine guns from Yates, including a machine gun stolen from the Martinsburg facility, and another 11 firearms and rifles from other people who bought them from Yates.

Agents also seized 101 firearms, 1,352 slides and 123,000 rounds of ammo from Mr. Schreiber as well as another 28 firearms, including three machine guns, from people who had bought the weapons from him.