Three Texas men who sold a machine gun and silencer to an undercover ATF agent have been sentenced to more than 23 years in federal prison.
Guy Mena, 34, and Stephen Kadlec, 39, were arrested and charged in November 2021.
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.
Mena pleaded guilty to transferring a firearm in violation of the NFA in 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.
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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 Mena, Kadlec, and Salgado at a motel in Arlington on Nov. 18, 2021.
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.
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 Mena, Kadlec, and 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, Mena had sold more than 50 grams of methamphetamine to another confidential informant out of his apartment in Abilene.
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