New York, NY – Two days after the arrest of a former Brooklyn resident who allegedly made $1.95 million selling illegally obtained gun permits, the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau has announced that it will be investigating permits issued by two police officers who have been stripped of their guns and badges in connection with the probe.
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As previously reported on VIN News, Sergeant David Villanueva and Officer Richard Ochetal of the NYPD’s License Division have been placed on modified duty after it was discovered that they had expedited gun permits in exchange for bribes.
Alex Lichtenstein, who now lives in Rockland County, is said to have paid out $900,000 to secure gun permits, at least one of which is known to have gone to an individual with a shady criminal record.
All permits handled by the pair for an unspecified length of time will be reviewed by the Internal Affairs Bureau, according to The Daily News. It is unknown at this time how many applications by the two men are being scrutinized.\
Also disciplined in connection with the bribery scheme was the commanding officer of the License Division, 48 year old Deputy Inspector Michael Endall, bringing the number of high ranking members of the NYPD to face punitive action to six. Sources said that more arrests are expected to come in connection with this investigation.
Great job by the feds and the NYPD. A gun in the wrong hands is very dangerous no matter if the recipient is a Jewish, Christian, Muslim or atheist person!
Everyone that received a gun through this process, should have it confiscated and be subject to an arrest or at a minimum, a review of their actions.
What is even scarier than all this , is knowing that approx. 150 unqualified people in our community have guns this particular way.
We should all demand from our Police Dept. and government officials that these people should surrender their guns immediately and thoroughly checked to ensure safety for the rest of us
Any criminal can go out on the street and buy a gun for much less then $18,000 and without having any record of them,
all those people who bought from Lichtenstein are people who wanted to be 100% legal just couldn’t wait to go through the system which can take a long time so they used Lichtenstein as their expediter ,
all those lichtenstien gun buyers deserve big credit for doing it legal, and for the NYPD it’s just a lesson to make the system more efficiant so everyone who wants and is entitlted for a gun can get it more easily.
This wasn’t a arms dealer as the press describes, they have all gun holders records in NYPD system, he was just an expditer.