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By Aila Slisco
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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has announced the criminal indictment of a man accused of manufacturing "ghost guns" and test-firing the homemade weapons in Central Park.
Ghost guns are typically untraceable firearms that are made with the aid of 3D printers and gun-making kits that include essential parts like receivers, which can be altered and assembled by people at home.
The emergence of the weapons in recent years has inspired a wave of regulatory laws at the federal and state levels—including in New York, where the weapons are banned if they do not include serial numbers.
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Bragg, who has been in the national spotlight recently due to his indictment of former President Donald Trump on charges of falsifying business records, indicted 29-year-old Roberto Guerrero on over 50 counts of felony and misdemeanor charges related to an alleged ghost gun manufacturing scheme.
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A press release issued on Wednesday indicates that authorities arrested Guerrero in March after seizing parts including receivers "modeled off of a traditional AR-15 weapon," ammunition and "two fully operable 3D-printed assault weapons" during a raid of his Harlem apartment.
"As alleged, Roberto Guerrero threatened the safety of all New Yorker, including his own children, when he decided to manufacture and store 3D-printed weapons—some of which were fully operable—in his home," Bragg said in a statement included in the press release.
"As the technology behind 3D weapons continues to improve, the guns being produced are only becoming more sophisticated," he added. "Gun violence remains our top priority and while I am pleased that shootings and homicides are down significantly since I took Office, we must remain diligent and leverage every tool at our disposal to tackle ghost guns and ultimately prevent gun violence."
Bragg's office alleges that Guerrero "at least since September 2023" created the weapons using 3D printers and gun parts that he had shipped to his home while purchasing and selling components "through several online retailers under various aliases" and advertising his designs in videos. Guerrero's wife was separately charged with assisting with the manufacturing operation.
New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban said that the "cache of weapons" that Guerrero allegedly possessed "had the potential to wreak horrendous carnage," accusing the defendant of making videos of himself appearing to fire the weapons, including in Central Park on five occasions.
It was unclear whether or not Guerrero had legal representation at the time of publication. Newsweek reached out for comment to Bragg's office via email on Wednesday.
Guerrero is facing felony charges that include criminal possession of a firearm or weapon and manufacturing, transporting and defacing weapons. He was also charged with dozens of misdemeanor counts, including failure to safely store firearms, endangering the welfare of a child and unlawful possession of ammunition.
Bragg, alongside Democratic state lawmakers Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Linda Rosenthal, introduced legislation last year that would tighten up New York ghost gun laws by banning the sharing of blueprints to make parts with 3D printers.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh the issue later this year in an appeal of a 2022 federal law that regulates ghost guns by requiring that they have serial numbers.
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