NEW HAVEN, CONN. — An Agawam man was indicted by a federal grand jury on Dec. 19 and faces four criminal charges related to his alleged possession of ghost guns.
Nicholas Kingsley, 40, was arrested following a traffic stop in April in Enfield. He first faced state charges, but was later indicted federally for allegedly taking the guns across state lines.
Court records show police originally discovered three homemade ghost guns in his car after his April 16 arrest. But he phoned his mother and brother in prison and was heard telling them to pick up his car from a commuter location in Windsor Locks and take it. in his mother’s apartment.
“In this call, the defendant asked his family to go through the vehicle and remove items from the vehicle. Law enforcement later located the vehicle at the Agawam apartment where the defendant often resided with his mother,” court records say.
During a search of the vehicle two days after his arrest, Homeland Security Investigations special agents discovered 14 fully assembled firearms along with more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition and machine gun conversion devices, police said.
The indictment charges Kingsley with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison; unlawful possession of ammunition by a felon, a felony that carries a maximum prison sentence of 15 years; illegal possession of a machine gun, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; and unlawful possession of a weapon in violation of the National Firearms Act, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Kingsley, who has been in custody since his arrest in April, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.