Men Sentenced to Combined 23+ Years for Selling Machinegun, Silencer
Three men who sold a machine gun and silencer to an undercover ATF agent have been sentenced to more than 23 years in federal prison, announced U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Chad E. Meacham.
Guy Mena, 34, and Stephen Kadlec, 39, were arrested and charged in November 2021. Mr. Kadlec plead guilty in January 2022 to transferring a firearm in violation of the National Firearms Act and was sentenced in June to two years in federal prison. Mr. Mena pleaded guilty to transferring a firearm in violation of the NFA December 2021 and, in a separate case in July 2022, to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine; he was sentenced last Thursday to a total of 14 ½ years in federal prison.
Their coconspirator Sergio Salgado, 37, was charged in May 2022. He also pleaded guilty to transferring a firearm in violation of the NFA and was sentenced in October to more than seven years in federal prison.
According to court documents, Mr. Mena offered to sell a confidential informant a firearm frame, two receivers – one semi-automatic and one fully-automatic – a silencer, and some firearm magazines for $6,000.
Accompanied by an undercover ATF agent, the confidential informant met Mr. Mena, Mr. Kadlec, and Mr. Salgado at a motel in Arlington on Nov. 18 2021. Mr. Kadlec showed the undercover agent the full-auto receiver, demonstrated how to swap the semi-auto receiver for the full-auto receiver on the firearm frame, outlined the functionality of the silencer, and explained how to toggle the selector switch to full-auto to turn the firearm into a machinegun.
(Unlike semiautomatic firearms, machineguns – weapons that can shoot more than one shot, without manual reloading, by single function of the trigger – are generally unlawful for civilians under the National Firearms Act.)
The undercover agent handed over $6,000 and departed with the firearm, receivers, silencer, and magazines. Shortly after the ATF agent left the room, Texas DPS officers observed Mr. Mena, Mr. Kadlec, and Mr. Salgado exit the hotel room and get into a vehicle; when they pulled the vehicle over, they detained the three men and recovered the government funds.
Prior to the firearm transaction, Mr. Mena had sold more than 50 grams of methamphetamine to another confidential informant out of his apartment in Abilene.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Dallas Field Division and the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted the investigation in cooperation with the Arlington Police Department, the Abilene Police Department, and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s South Central Laboratory. Assistant U.S. Attorney Levi Thomas prosecuted the firearms cases against all three defendants while Assistant U.S. Attorney Juanita Fielden prosecuted the drug case against Mr. Mena.
