Feds accuse Wisconsin man of selling military equipment

(AP) - A Navy veteran living in northwestern Wisconsin was illegally selling laser gun sights and hoarding automatic weapons, federal prosecutors say.

Federal agents and police discovered dozens of working machine guns on David Carmel's property in Gilman, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Madison. The complaint alleges unlawful possession of two machine guns and doesn't address the others.

Carmel, a 32-year-old former Navy lieutenant, also faces federal charges in New York accusing him of selling stolen U.S. military laser targeting devices and machine gun parts to an undercover agent. Those counts were filed May 21.

He was arrested Wednesday in Chippewa County shortly before he was to meet an undercover agent at the Leinenkugel's Brewery, according to the Wisconsin complaint.

He appeared in federal court in Minneapolis Friday and was released on bond, said Sara O'Reilly, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office there.

He's due to appear in federal court in Madison on Monday morning.

According to the complaint in New York, Carmel served as a supply officer on the minesweeper USS Shrike. He had access to inventories for U.S. military supply depots around the world.

He purchased hundreds of laser sights, machine gun barrels, night vision goggles and machine gun parts for the ship, the complaint said. The Shrike didn't need such equipment, and Carmel was relieved of his supply officer duties for misappropriating government property and misusing his authority.

In November 2005 he left the Navy to live with his family in Gilman, the complaint said.

The Wisconsin and New York complaints do not say what became of the equipment Carmel ordered. But he told investigators in jail he moved gun barrels and ammunition to Wisconsin when he left the military and had bought machine gun barrels from commercial sources.

Federal investigators in April 2006 discovered someone was trying to sell a "destroyed" rifle scope on eBay. By DOD directive, laser scopes must be destroyed when no longer used.

They tracked the account to Carmel's father, who gave his son's telephone number to an undercover agent.

Over the next year, Carmel allegedly sold four laser sights that had been built for the Department of Defense and machine gun parts to an undercover agent, who received the goods at his Manhattan office's undercover address.

Carmel told the agent he still knew a lot of people in the military "and for the most part anything is relatively available," according to the complaint.

The New York complaint said the agent paid Carmel about $7,280 in total.

On May 22, an undercover agent called Carmel, and Carmel invited the agent to his property in Gilman to shoot, according to the Wisconsin complaint.

When the agent asked Carmel what kind of weapons he had, Carmel said he had three machine guns and no matter what kind of ammunition the agent brought, he'd have a gun that could shoot it.

They agreed to meet Wednesday at the brewery in Chippewa Falls, but 15 minutes before the meeting was to take place Carmel was arrested on the New York charges. The complaint doesn't say if he was arrested in the brewery.

Carmel told investigators in jail he had one machine gun and had a license for it from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He said he and his girlfriend lived in a trailer next to his parents house and he kept pieces of tanks, bullets and shells in a shed, adding he moved gun barrels to Wisconsin after he left the Navy and had bought some machine gun barrels.

He called his father and told them he had been arrested, "and that his father could guess what it is for," the complaint said.

Federal agents and local police executed a search warrant on the Gilman property Friday. They found two machine guns Carmel had described to the undercover agent in Carmel's parents house, and more than 65 other working machine guns on the property, the complaint said.

A spokeswoman with the U.S. attorney's office in New York declined to comment. Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Przybylinski Finn, who is handling Carmel's case in Madison, didn't return a message.

Carmel's attorney, listed in online records from Minnesota federal court as Reynaldo Aligada, didn't return a message left at his office. No home listing could be found. Directory assistance said the number was unpublished.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)