Gunsmith sentenced for stashing unregistered guns
A Crawford County Man suspected of being a militia leader was charged after weapons were discovered at his home and at a cabin.
The Associated Press
ERIE - A Gunsmith accused by authorities of being a militia leader was sentenced to 35 months in prison Tuesday for stashing 10 unregistered machine guns at his home and a hunting camp, allegedly in preparation for a showdown with federal agents.
Darrell Sivik's attorney had asked a judge to confine Sivik to his home instead of prison, because of medical conditions, including a recent heart bypass surgery and diabetes. But Senior U.S. District Judge Maurice Cohill Jr. said the federal Bureau of Prisons is equipped to deal with Sivik's heath problems.
Sivik, 56, of West Mead Township, Crawford County, pleaded guilty in January to two counts of possessing unregistered firearms. He refused to comment as he walked out of the courtroom.
He remained free on bond and will have to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons in a few weeks.
"Given his health, it's a good question whether he'll survive" in prison, defense attorney Joseph Conte said. "He knows what he did was wrong."
Sivik was charged after authorities discovered machine guns at his home and at a cabin near the Allegheny National Forest about 85 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Seven of the weapons were Sten guns, easily reproduced 9mm machine guns originally by the British in World War II.
Sivik was the last of five men to plead guilty or to be convicted in a federal investigation into one of the homemade machine guns that Sivik and another alleged militia leader, George Bilunka, sold to an undercover federal agent last year for $300.
Bilunka, 60, a retiree from Atlantic, Crawford County, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison in December. He pleaded guilty in August 2004 to charges he owned two homemade land mines, a modified SKS carbine rifle, and a Sten gun. He also acknowledged selling the Sten gun to the federal agent along with Sivik.
Federal authorities said Bilunka had trained his six-member Christian American Patriots Survivalists to kill SWAT officers, stocked a bunker on his 27-acre homestead with six months' supply of food and taught his followers how to bury their guns until they were needed.
Federal prosecutors had alleged that Sivik was the leader of the Braveheart Militia, which broadcast a radio show and stashed arms to fend off federal agents. He also threatened agents, saying it was "time for the ammo box rather than the ballot box," and planned to muster militia members if authorities moved against the group, authorities said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marshall Piccinini said Sivik's paranoid and violent ideas became dangerous because of the training and arms the other militia members received.
The judge agreed in sentencing Sivik.
"Certainly the case had potential for violence and reflected a serious disregard for the law by showing people how to bury guns and all of that," Cohill said. "We feel that we must deal with this in as serious a way as the situation warrants."