Man who sold rifle without check to gunman in Midland, Odessa shootings pleads guilty
The man who sold the rifle that an assailant used last year to shoot 32 people in Midland and Odessa pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Wednesday to gun sale and tax crimes.
Marcus Braziel, 45, of Lubbock, admitted that he routinely bought firearm firing mechanisms called lower receivers and used milling equipment to build them into complete guns that he sold from his garage or the parking lot of a sporting goods store.
Braziel pleaded guilty to dealing firearms without a license and subscribing to a false tax return.
Braziel admitted in a factual resume that he sold to Seth Ator an AR-15-style rifle on Oct. 8, 2016, about three years before Ator used the gun to shoot dead seven people and wound 25 others.
Police officers killed Ator, 36, on Aug. 31, 2019, outside a movie theater in Odessa after his violent spasm.
Ator, who had been determined by a court to be “mentally defective” and was legally prohibited from possessing firearms, first tried to purchase a gun from a sporting goods store, but was rejected after the National Instant Criminal Background Check System flagged his status, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. He circumvented the background check system by purchasing a gun from Braziel, who did not to run background checks on his buyers.
Background checks are not necessarily required for in-state, private transfers, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. However, Braziel admitted that he was “engaged in the business of selling firearms” and should have been licensed and have conducted background checks.
He made about $100 to $200 in profit in selling completed weapons. Braziel said he typically listed his firearms for sale on armslist.com.
Braziel faces up to five years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 7.
In four years, prosecutors said, Braziel inadvertently sold firearms to three other prohibited people: a convicted felon, an man under felony indictment, an immigrant in the U.S. illegally.
Agents traced the lower receiver of the gun Braziel sold to Ator to Mulehead Dan’s, a federally licensed firearm dealer in Lubbock. Mulehead Dan’s owner told AFT special agents that Braziel often purchased lower receivers and firearms there.
“If you’re a firearms dealer — whether you’re selling out of a brick-and-mortar store, in your basement, or online — you must ensure that a background check is conducted on your purchasers,” U.S. Attorney Erin Nealy Cox wrote in a statement. “As this case makes clear, dealing firearms without a license isn’t some obscure, technical violation. It is unlawful conduct that has real-world impact and the potential for devastating results.”
Beyond concealing his unlicensed dealing, Braziel also admitted that he hid from the IRS the income he earned in 2016 from his firearm sales.
This story was originally published October 7, 2020 at 7:48 PM.
