Instructor of guards faces trial in gun-license forgery scam
Victor Franco advertised his Orlando bodyguard and private-eye business by holding assault rifles and posing with beauty queens, elected officials and private jets.
As president of FV Eagle Eye Investigation and Protection Services, Franco identified himself on its website and in a YouTube video as a third-degree black belt certified by the National Rifle Association to teach courses in the use of pistols, shotguns and rifles.
Franco claimed to have more than 33 years of experience in Florida and Puerto Rico during radio interviews and ads in Tu Nuevo Amanecer, one of Central Florida’s Spanish-language newspapers.
Now the Orlando businessman is facing up to 255 years in prison if convicted on 51 felony charges related to selling forged training and firearms certificates so unqualified security guards could carry guns in malls, schools and other public places, court
records show.
Franco’s arrest in December was one of the latest in a statewide crackdown on illegal sales of firearms-training certificates that began two years ago in Orlando. That’s when a clerk noticed white-out on a security guard’s paperwork and discovered that forged documents may have been used to obtain up to 350 statewide firearms licenses, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs’ Division of Licensing.
“It was definitely the tip of the iceberg, as much as I hate clichés,” said state spokeswoman Erin Gillespie. “This is a safety issue.”
Concerns about guard training increased last year in Orlando when three armed security guards were arrested in shootings. Two were licensed and the third was a felon working illegally when he shot and killed a man. All await trial.
Florida currently licenses about 136,000 security guards, including 23,000 with statewide firearms permits. Each year, the state Division of Licensing revokes licenses from about security guards and rejects about 3,000 applications as a result of investigations, records show. The agency also licenses Florida’s 1.34 million concealedweapon-permit holders.
$400, no instruction needed
Franco, now free on bail, is accused of selling training and firearms certificates for up to $400 without providing any instruction. As a security-guard instructor and a notary public, he could issue the certificates needed to obtain a statewide gun license.
“The actions of Victor Franco caused great risk to the citizens of Florida as Statewide Firearm Licenses were issued to numerous individuals who received their licenses with falsified certificates,” wrote state Investigator Tiffany Arnold.
Court records show he is charged with 51 felony counts of identity theft, submitting fraudulent certificates and false certification by a notary.
The case is based on sworn statements from a dozen guards who admitted they paid Franco, often in cash at a Planet Smoothie on Semoran Boulevard, for the certificates rather than take state-required training. Investigators discovered the guards’ paperwork had the forged signature of a firearms instructor at the Brantly Corp., another Orlando security-guard business where Franco briefly worked more than a decade ago.
D’Andre Stinnett, an instructor for the Brantly Corp. since 1999, said Thursday that Franco and anyone else charged with selling phony documents place the public in danger every time an unqualified guard shows up for work with a gun.
“The lives around you depend on you being proficient, not a victim to you because of your lack of training,” said Stinnett. “It caught up to them. It’s about time.”
State law requires armed security guards to pass a 40-hour course in legal knowledge and 28 hours of firearms training. To pass the gun course, each student must fire 196 bullets at targets ranging from 9 to 75 feet and score at least 80 percent. And the guards must pass the test every year.
Neither Franco nor his lawyer, Ricardo Pesquera, responded to requests for comment.
Most of Franco’s clients who paid him for the documents have not been arrested.
“In general, the G licenses holders [armed security guards] who came forward, cooperated with our investigation and voluntarily relinquished their licenses were not charged,” Gillespie said. Four others D’Andre Stinnett, a security-guard instructor for the Brantly Corp., said anyone who sells phony documents puts the public at risk every time an unqualified guard goes to work with a gun. charged with buying from Franco who did not cooperate with investigators are being sought for arrest.
Cops: Mom, son ran scam
The original 2012 investigation led to the arrest a year later of Gertrude Zimeus Brun, who ran the Brun Protective Security Training School in Orlando. Her trial is set for later this year.
Similar to Franco, Brun, 58, is charged with 19 counts of forgery and three counts of identity theft involving sales of certificates to untrained security guards for up to $500. Some of those buyers later worked for her at Access Patrol Security, another Orlando business Brun ran, court records state.
Brun, who lives in Davenport, declined to comment through her attorney, Dominic P. Sagorski.
Her son Michael Brun, 26, was charged with forging certificates in the case. Arrested in 2013, he was allowed to enter pretrial diversion to avoid a criminal record, but that ended four days before Christmas when he was arrested in Orlando working security at the Mall at Millenia, court records show.
Michael Brun was charged with grand theft after surveillance cameras filmed him helping two women shoplift more than $2,000 in clothing and giving them a voided receipt, records show. His pretrial diversion was revoked Jan. 5, and he now faces criminal prosecution for his 2013 and 2014 arrests, records show.
He also declined to comment through his attorney, Terrance R. Rooth of Orlando.
The Brun investigation spread to Miami, where some of the Orlando applicants claimed they received 28 hours of firearms training and shooting practice at a gun range. None had, according to court records.
Some of the falsified certificates came from Florida International University police Officer Nicholson Geffrard, who pleaded no contest in November to four counts of forgery. Adjudication was withheld, and he was sentenced to five years of probation and 350 hours of community service, records show.
Luis Bonilla Jr., a Miami security-guard instructor, admitted forging instructors’ names on at least 100 firearms certificates for up to $75 each, court records show. He, too, received five years of probation and 350 hours of community service.
Geffrard and Bonilla are expected to testify if the case against Gertrude Brun goes to trial.