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Suspected Drug Running Guats Arraigned on Weapons Charges
posted (November 5, 2018)
As you heard, police can't prove that the Guatemalan nationals they detained were the persons trying to smuggle the cocaine that they confiscated last week.

So instead, they went with charges that they can prove. Today, they marched Mario Rodolfo Lopez Moreira, Gilberto Gomez Jimenez, Marco Vinicio Palencia, Berardo de los Angeles Franco Carias, and Sergio Wilfredo Morales Godoy to court for a slew of firearms charges.

Godoy and Carias were charged with 1 count of keeping an unlicensed firearm for a chrome 9 mm pistol, keeping unlicensed ammunition for 47 live rounds of 9mm bullets, keeping prohibited materials for a chrome extended magazine, keeping an unlicensed firearm for chrome and black 9mm pistol, keeping a prohibited firearm, for 0.40 mm pistol, keeping unlicensed ammunition for 39 live rounds of 9mm ammunition, keeping prohibited ammunition for 29 live rounds of 0.40 bullets, keeping a prohibited material for an extended magazine on the 9mm pistol, and keeping prohibited material for an extended magazine on the 0.40 pistol.

Jimenez, Palencia, and Moreira were charged with keeping an unlicensed firearm for a 9mm pistol, keeping a prohibited material for a 0.40 extended magazine, keeping a prohibited firearm for a camouflage and chrome 0.40 pistol, and keeping prohibited ammunition for 36 live rounds of 0.40 bullets.

All 5 men pleaded not guilty, but in the afternoon Carias and Moreira changed their pleas, accepting guilt. Their hope was that even with all those guns and bullets, the state would consider a fine, and not prison sentence. Also, they are hoping that the prosecution would drop the charges against other 3 defendants, which the prosecution has indicated that they are willing to do.

Their attorneys attempted to convince Magistrate Emmerson Banner to forego a prison sentence for the guilty plea, since recent firearms cases in the Supreme Court has allowed a precedence to be set, where the judge can use his or her discretion in this manner. The Magistrate has adjourned the case for a few days so that he can make a careful ruling.

All 5 men and 4 more have been charged and arraigned on immigration offenses. 7 have pleaded guilty to these offenses, and they have been given fines of a thousand dollars, and a removal order has been granted against them.

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