San Francisco Chronicle - Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Big gun dealer fighting ATF revocation decision
Shop can't account for almost 2,000 weapons, U.S. says
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

SAN LEANDRO - The federal government wants to shut one of Northern California's largest firearms dealers because the San Leandro business, which has a history of run-ins with firearms regulators, cannot account for nearly 2,000 guns.

The decision by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to revoke Trader Sports' federal license to sell firearms June 1 stems from an inventory audit in 2003, which revealed that owner Tony Cucchiara cannot document the weapons' whereabouts, the agency said in documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Cucchiara blames the problem on clerical errors made by store employees who duplicated entries or transposed digits when completing required records noting the acquisition or sale of a weapon, said his attorney, Malcolm Segal of Sacramento.

Segal said ATF inspectors "were instructed to go in and search all the way and find these hypertechnical violations."

But the government says in court papers that Cucchiara's store willfully violated the law after repeatedly being told what it needed to do.

Cucchiara, who has been selling guns since 1958, plans to appeal the scheduled revocation at a hearing in federal court May 25.

Marti McKee, an ATF spokeswoman in San Francisco, declined to comment on the case.

Generally speaking, McKee said, the agency inspects stores that haven't been previously inspected, have compliance issues or sell guns with a "short time to crime" in which weapons move quickly from dealer to street.

In a lawsuit he filed in February against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the ATF concerning the 2003 audit, Cucchiara argues his business "was unfairly and unjustifiably targeted for an unprecedented and illegal inspection and audit of its records which went well beyond the pale of any legitimate or reasonable annual 'compliance' inspection."

The audit found 3,659 firearms on the premises -- but the store's records indicated there were 9,100 firearms in its inventory. Cucchiara and ATF inspectors tried to reconcile the discrepancy and discovered an additional 2,036 weapons could not be accounted for -- bringing the total unaccounted for to 7,477, court documents showed.

Most of those weapons were tracked down, according to Cucchiara, but when the ATF issued its final notice of revocation in December, 1,767 remained unaccounted for, the ATF said.

Segal said Trader Sports confirmed the whereabouts of some weapons by contacting the owners and correcting the paperwork. He said the ATF even questioned some gun sales to law-enforcement officers because their agency letterhead didn't conform with the government's required forms.

The attorney added that some ATF inspectors who searched the business had purchased weapons from Trader Sports and were perfectly comfortable doing so.

This is not the first time Cucchiara has run afoul of the ATF.

When the ATF denied Cucchiara's license-renewal application in 1978, claiming he was improperly transferring his license to someone else, he sued, saying the agency had violated his civil rights. He agreed to dismiss the suit in 1983 and to improve his accounting procedures in exchange for the ATF renewing his license. Cucchiara also claimed that in dismissing that lawsuit, the ATF would not single out his store unnecessarily for inspections.

The ATF countered that Cucchiara "failed to demonstrate that the government was aware of any purported agreement," Mary Lerch, former ATF director of industry operations, wrote in court papers.

In its most recent lawsuit, Trader Sports noted that its latest inspection involved 15 ATF agents, whereas other inspections involved just one or two agents.

"They turned the business upside down, demanding to examine records dating back as far as 1967 under the pretense of an annual 'compliance' inspection," the suit said.

Without a license, Trader Sports would have to refund money to customers awaiting shipment of their guns, Cucchiara said in the suit filed in February.

Should Trader Sports shut, the suit said, it "will suffer the permanent destruction of its business, loss of prospective customers and goodwill and irreparable injury to its reputation within the community."

Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle

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