Indie Guns owner Lawrence Michael DeStefano was picked up from Florida’s Orange County Jail by New York detectives this week after serving nearly 90 days in custody and flown to New York City aboard a private jet.
When they landed, the officers took a group photo and then rushed DeStefano to an NYPD precinct to be booked, and then to a quick court hearing in Queens. Afterward, he was taken to Rikers Island, a notorious 413-acre state prison located in the East River near the Bronx, where he remains incarcerated.
At the court hearing, a New York state prosecutor tried to portray him as an “evil gun runner,” DeStefano said, but the judge cut her off.
“The judge looked at her and said, ‘I have a 65-year-old man with no criminal record and you’re saying all these bad things about him.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got some real serious charges against you. If you’ve got somewhere to stay, I will let you out on bail,’” DeStefano said over a jail phone Friday morning. “This is going to be a fight and the gloves are off. I am going balls-to-the-wall on this. It’s going to get ugly.”
DeStefano’s court-appointed defense attorney was of little help. She showed up just seconds before the hearing began.
“She had no idea what was going on,” he said.
He will appear in court for a bail hearing in two weeks, DeStefano said.
“I need to figure out how to get a message to the gun community,” he said. “If I am out on bail, I could win this. I know what I need to do to win this. I need to do research, but they’re seizing it for evidence. They already deleted my Telegram account after they got my password,” he said.
Throughout the trip, the detectives were talking furiously with the New York State Attorney General’s Office about whether to issue a press release, DeStefano said.
“It was chaos. Everyone was on their phones. They decided to issue a press release,” he said. “You guys really think you’re doing a press release? You’re helping me. The gun culture is a tight-knit family.”
New York State Attorney General Letitia James issued a lengthy press release late Wednesday, titled, “Attorney General James and NYPD Commissioner Tisch Announce Indictment of Florida Man for Illegally Shipping Firearms and Ghost Guns to New York.”
It contains a link to a 42-page indictment that charges DeStefano with 71 felonies, which could see him jailed for a total of 521 years.
“Lawrence Destefano and his company Indie Guns are accused of flooding New York with illegal firearms, and we are determined to bring him to justice,” James said in the press release. “I will not tolerate illegal and dangerous weapons in our communities, and I thank our partners in law enforcement for their work to shut down this ghost gun supplier.”
Despite the allegation and the centuries behind bars DeStefano faces, the press release indicates that only a dozen actual firearms were recovered, along with “two ghost gun kits, 28 high-capacity magazines, and over 1,400 rounds of ammunition, which were mailed to locations in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau County.”
The press release also mentions the default judgement James won in a civil suit against DeStefano, which he ignored.
“In March 2024, Attorney General James secured a $7.8 million judgment and court order against Indie Guns prohibiting it from selling firearms in New York,” the press release states.
The press release even includes quotes from NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch, HSI New York Special Agent in Charge Ricky J. Patel and USPIS Inspector in Charge Ketty Larco-Ward of the New York Division. All strongly supported James for supposedly “disrupting the dangerous illicit weapons pipeline,” and for “dismantling gun trafficking networks.”
DeStefano knows he will be severely outgunned in court.
“I am ready for the fight,” he said.
As I understand it, the SCotUS ‘Ghost Gun’ case last year ruled 80 percent receiver kits were legally guns that require serial numbers to be transferred in person to the respective buyers at an FFL, the same way fully-completed guns have been sold, since the 1968 Gun Control Act, form 4473 completed, background checked and all.
Is that, or is that not still the case? Are serial number-free 80 percent lowers legal to be sold in the USA, ‘cash and carry’ so to speak?
MAJOR BREAKING NEWS! TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES HUGE 2A POLICY CHANGES!.
Following the great news yesterday involving a historic decision by the US Department of Justice concluding that a federal gun control law is unconstitutional, the door has been opened to a huge number of other 2nd Amendment changes. Mark Smith, Four Boxes Diner, discusses…
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9-Z2lLhNY
What the anti-gun, democrat politicians, left wing wants to do to you too: 12,000 Citizens Slaughtered Is Proof Tyranny Isn’t a Thing of the Past.
(Colion) “They tell us tyrannical governments are a thing of the past. They tell us it could never happen again.
They tell us to just trust the government.
Then Iran happened.
Reports indicate 12,000 citizens killed by their own government—in real time, in 2026.
Unarmed people.
Sticks and stones.
Body bags lining the streets.
This isn’t ancient history. This isn’t a movie. This isn’t paranoia.
This is what happens when the government has all the power… and the people have none.
When the internet gets shut off.
When doctors are told not to treat gunshot wounds.
When speech, assembly, and resistance disappear overnight.
And yet, every time the Second Amendment comes up, we’re told it’s outdated. That tyranny is impossible. That we should “just trust the system.”
Iran is proof of where that thinking leads.
The Second Amendment was never about hunting.
It was never about sport.
It was about leverage—real leverage—against unchecked power.
…”
ht* tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emJKUGa1Aks
Left wing violence stupid is as stupid does and does the FA challenge and gets a FO prize for his mental illness: An Anti-ICE Activist Tried Interfering With an Arrest in California. Guess What Happened Next.
“It’s an ugly injury, but one that this person brought on themselves. Sorry, only bleeding heart liberals are going to feel bad for this kid, who got shot in the face with a rubber bullet by federal agents while trying to interfere with an arrest.
‘I will be blind for life. I have fractures in my skull that they can’t fix…They said it was a miracle I survived,’ said Kaden Rummler, 21. The incident occurred in Santa Ana, California, last Friday…
…
FAFO, kid. The best way to avoid getting shot by law enforcement is to not interfere with their operations. You people don’t have some special shield that protects you, and feelings aren’t a defense.
…”
[Note: ya know I see some of these videos of these mentally ill left wingers with objects in their hands that can be used as weapons rushing ICE agents to assault them. And its a down right miracle the restraint these ICE agents are using to not shoot these loons with real guns instead of using non-lethal stuff. In a lot of the videos I see of such incidents, in over 90% of the incidents of these mentally ill protesters assaulting ICE agents like this, if they were to have done that to me as a civilian I could have justifiably and legally shot them and would have done so.]
ht* tps://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/01/16/fafo-anti-ice-activist-sustained-some-brutal-injuriestrying-to-assault-federal-officers-n2669613
Should De Stefano win (found not guilty) in Court this will set a prescient that could end the prohibitions set forth by NYS in the CCIA and other unconstitutional Laws….I’ve gotta believe Florida Governor DeSantis has a deeper plan going on here by allowing not only his arrest and incarceration owithout due process…get your check books out boys, this is a Constitutional fight in the making, and with proper representation could change the face of Laws not only in NY but every “ban” State in the Union.