Police chief, gun dealers try to bypass law to buy, resell machine guns
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The former police chief of a small Ohio village has pleaded guilty Monday to helping two firearms dealers in Indiana acquire and resell 200 fully automatic machine guns, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday.
Dorian LaCourse, 66, of Milford, Ohio, is the former police chief of Addyston, Ohio. The village of about 900 people is west of Cincinnati on the Ohio River. He’d signed a plea agreement in February, but the Justice Department on Monday announced the deal.
A federal grand jury had indicted LaCourse for helping the firearms dealers: Johnathan Marcum, 34, of Laurel, Indiana, and Christopher Petty, 58, of Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The dealers previously pleaded guilty in separate cases to participating in the same conspiracy.
The three men had exploited a law enforcement exemption to the federal ban on the possession or transfer of fully automatic machine guns, the Justice Department says. LaCourse, as police chief, had signed letters falsely stating that the village was interested in purchasing the machine guns, and asked Marcum, Petty or both of the dealers to demonstrate the firearms.
LaCourse also orders German-made machine guns for his department, although Marcum and Petty paid for the firearms. The men had intended to bypass restrictions on the importation of such weapons by anyone other than the police or the military. LaCourse received over $11,500 from the gun dealers for his role in the scheme, the Justice Department says.
The Justice Department did not say when the men would be sentenced.
