Three charged in alleged ghost gun operation
Several weapons, equipment found at local residence
>> Three people have been charged in connection with an illegal firearms operation that turned a Willow Glen home into a suburban ghost gun-making station, with authorities seizing several untraceable rifles and assorted gun-making equipment there and at another South Bay residence, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
Prosecutors announced Tuesday that they charged 38-year-old San Jose resident Jack Michael Mahon and Joseph Clifford Cahoon, 31, of Morgan Hill, with multiple crimes including illegally manufacturing assault weapons and illegally having firearms while having felony convictions. Court records show Mahon was charged with 28 felony counts and Cahoon was charged with seven.
A third person arrested, 32-year-old Amanda Mary Bazzani, was not charged with any gun-making crimes but with one felony count each of possessing a rifle and possessing ammunition while having a felony conviction.
An investigation led by DA investigators and involving San Jose police, the sheriff's office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led to search warrants being served Thursday at the home where Mahon and Bazzani live — on Roy Avenue near the southeastern edge of the Willow Glen neighborhood — and at a Morgan Hill apartment where Cahoon lives.
The DA's office reported that authorities found at least eight assault rifles, assorted parts of assault rifles, three partially built machine pistols, ammunition, 3D printers and an undisclosed amount of fentanyl that forms the basis of an additional drug crime charge against Mahon.
Prosecutors assert that the three defendants were involved with producing made-to-order AK and ARstyle assault rifles, using kits, custom-made tools, and 3D printing, and that Mahon modified at least one pistol for fully automatic fire. The gun purchases were reportedly brokered online with customers left to assemble
the weapons, which had no serial numbers or required background checks, at home.
Most of the weapons and gun-making equipment recovered at Mahon's home were housed in a garage on the property, according to authorities.
“Ghost guns are swamping our community, illegal part by illegal part,” District
Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “We are working tirelessly to dismantle these criminal networks.”
Local law enforcement first began investigating in December after a Morgan Hill rental storage unit linked to Cahoon was placed in default for nonpayment, and the storage company found evidence
that the unit had been broken into while he was locked out of it. According to a DA investigative summary accompanying the criminal complaint, Morgan Hill police were alerted after Cahoon was reportedly recorded “sneaking into the facility on surveillance cameras.”
Police obtained a search warrant for the storage unit and found that it had been hastily ransacked, and that material left behind were traces of a “privately made firearm operation.” Some of the abandoned items and equipment included a welding table, cutting tools, Dremel tools, parts of a 3D printer, renderings of a 3D printing of an AR-15 lower receiver, a handgun grip to a revolver, cut pieces of metal in the shape of a Mac-style firearm receiver, assorted parts, a loose bullet, and “multiple tools that could be utilized to manufacture and/or assemble illegal firearms.”
On the same day the Willow Glen home was searched, police also searched Cahoon's apartment in Morgan Hill, where they recovered items including 3D printers, a lower receiver of an non-serialized AR-style assault weapon, an incomplete AK-47 style firearm shell and other related parts and a drill press. Prosecutors said at the time, Cahoon was already being sought by police in a separate case for allegedly manufacturing guns out of a Gilroy motel room.
A Los Gatos address was also searched as part of the investigation, but details were not immediately available about that site.