The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Three men arrested in connection with stolen firearms
WHITPAIN — Three men — two from Whitpain Township and one from Lansdale — have been arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into the reported theft of two handguns and a semiautomatic rifle from a Hatfield Township gun shop during an alleged overnight burglary in June.
Mack Clayton, 27, of the 200 block of West Fifth Street in Lansdale, and Damian Morris, 30, of the 200 block of Oak Street in West Ambler, were taken into custody on Aug. 19 and arraigned the next morning before Whitpain District Judge Robert Sobeck.
James Mulbah, 31, also of the 200 block of Oak Street, was arrested the night of Aug. 21 and arraigned Friday before Sobeck. Each has been charged with felony receiving stolen property and felony conspiracy to receive stolen property. Police said that in the early morning hours of June 2, Hatfield Township officers responded to a security alarm activation at Dell’s Firearms Specialists, located on the 1200 block of Walnut Street, and investigators determined that the perpetrators entered the store through a broken-out window and exited through a rear door.
Three firearms were stolen during the burglary, according to police: a black Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum revolver with a 10.5-inch barrel and a Leupold scope; a silver Walther PPK .380-caliber handgun; and a black Romanian Arms AK-47 rifle with an AR-15-style collapsible buttstock.
Police said that on the morning of June 20, the owner of Dell’s called a Hatfield detective to report that three suspicious men had just come into the store and bought .44-caliber ammunition.
Two of the men were positively identified as Clayton and Mulbah; the latter man, police said, purchased three boxes of ammunition and presented his driver’s license and used his credit card during the transaction. While the owner was completing the sale, according to police,
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(Sept. 2): Clayton and the third man were standing where the AK-47 had been displayed prior to it being stolen, and the owner “overheard them say something about an AK-47 but couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation.”
Meanwhile, police said, another store employee told investigators that while the three men were in the store, the employee saw a photograph of a firearm on Clayton’s cellphone that resembled the stolen Ruger handgun.
Police said the men were seen departing the store after the ammunition purchase in a champagnecolored SUV, and investigators were provided with the license plate number. Later that day, according to police, an Ambler Borough detective observed the vehicle parked near Mulbah’s home on Oak Street and saw Mulbah, Clayton and a third man sitting together on a porch.
On June 24, police said, a Hatfield detective spoke to Clayton, who admitted being at Dell’s on June 20 and having a photo of a firearm similar to a Ruger handgun with a scope on his cellphone — Clayton claimed that “an unknown male showed him the gun in an alley in Philadelphia” about a week and a half earlier, and that he had taken a photo of the weapon but had since deleted it from his phone, according to police. Clayton’s cellphone was seized, pending a search warrant to analyze its contents, and Clayton refused to divulge the phone’s security password, investigators said.
On the same day, Hatfield detectives spoke with Mulbah, who denied owning or possessing a firearm and initially denied buying ammunition from Dell’s until he was confronted with a receipt for the transaction, at which point he admitted buying the bullets, police said.
When asked if he still had the ammo, police said, Mulbah told detectives he “didn’t want to get in trouble” so he threw the three boxes of bullets out his car window somewhere along the Atlantic City Expressway. When shown a photo of a Ruger handgun with a scope similar to the one that had been stolen, Mulbah denied ever seeing the gun before, and when asked if he had the stolen weapon, he stated, “I do not currently have any weapons,” police said.
Mulbah consented to a search of his residence and his SUV by Whitpain police officers that day, but none of the stolen firearms or the .44-caliber ammunition were located, according to police.
On June 25, a search warrant was approved for the contents of Clayton’s phone, and after a forensic examination was conducted, on Aug. 8 detectives said they discovered seven images from the device that depicted the stolen Ruger, all of which were included in court documents. In three of the photos, a man identified as Clayton is seen holding the stolen gun; in two of the photos, a man identified as Morris is seen sitting beneath a framed picture of Jesus while holding the Ruger and smiling broadly; and in two other photos, the Ruger is seen laying on a white lace tablecloth next to another handgun not believed to be one of the stolen weapons, as well as a folding knife and a plastic bag filled with what appears to be .380-caliber ammunition, according to police. All seven photographs were taken on June 20 and appeared to have been shot at the same location, police said.
The owner of Dell’s was subsequently shown one of the photos and he identified the firearm as the stolen Ruger, and another store employee said that the photo of the Ruger atop the lace tablecloth was the one the employee had seen on Clayton’s phone, investigators said.
On Aug. 19, detectives from both the Hatfield Township Police Department and the Montgomery County Detective Bureau’s Violent Crime Unit executed search warrants at Clayton’s apartment in Lansdale and at a residence on the 200 block of Oak Street; the interior of the latter location was identified as the place where the seven photographs were taken.
Clayton was taken into custody at his apartment, and Morris agreed to meet with detectives later that day. During that meeting, police said, Morris stated that he didn’t know anything about a stolen .44 Magnum revolver with a scope, that he had never seen such a weapon, that he had never seen Clayton with such a weapon and that the last time he had even held a firearm was when he was 16 years old.
Morris was then taken into custody and transported back to Hatfield police headquarters where, after being shown a photo of himself smiling while holding the stolen Ruger, he admitting being the individual in the photograph, police said.