Defense attorneys for Dr. Randeep Mann, who is accused of masterminding an explosion that nearly killed the chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board, began their case Friday with testimony focused on guns and grenades.
Months before Mann was charged in the Feb. 4, 2009, West Memphis bombing that injured Dr. Trent Pierce, he was jailed on charges of possessing 98 live launcher-propelled grenades that were found buried near his home and having two improperly registered guns found inside his home.
Mann, 52, has for many years been a licensed federal firearms dealer and collector. In a recordedjailhouse conversation that jurors heard earlier in the trial, he referred to his love of collecting guns as an addiction, “like cocaine.”
During a March 4, 2009, search of his home in the Pope County town of London, authorities found more than 100 automatic and semiautomatic guns that were legally registered to him. The search was a month after the bombing and a day after the buried grenades were found.
After checking the guns that require federal registration, agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined that two of them - a model USAS-12 12-gauge shotgun and a 7.62-caliber machine gun - weren’t properly registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.
Defense attorneys are trying to show Mann methodically registered and inventoried his guns, and that any registration problems weren’t intentional.
John Norrell, a gunsmith of 30 years, testified that the shotgun’s classification changed from that of a sporting gun to a destructive device, requiring registration, many years after Mann legally purchased it. He said the ATF made the change on March 1, 1994, because the agency determined that the gun’s purpose wasn’t purely for sport and because its bore was more than half an inch in diameter, making it too large for sport purposes.
Norrell testified that the ATF didn’t do a good job of getting the word out about the change to people who already owned the guns, and that when the change was mentioned, the agency didn’t explain what someone who already owned one of the guns should do, and when, to properly register it.
In 2001, the agency approved a letter to firearms dealers that was clearer but still didn’t advise owners of the guns how to comply with the law, Norrell said. Letters about the need to register the guns weren’t sent to purchasers of record until three months before the registration deadline, or to firearms licensees until just a month before the deadline, he said.
Those efforts didn’t reach everyone who had legally bought such a gun, Norrell said. Also, there was no requirement that dealers who sold the guns when they were considered sport guns to notify the buyers that the classification had changed, he said.
Registry problems with the machine gun, Norrell said, could have been the fault ofsomeone who entered serial numbers into the ATF’s database or the person who sold the gun to Mann after reconfiguring it then sent the paperwork to the ATF.
“There’s a lot of controversy about the accuracy” of the database, he testified, adding the federal agency is generally “pretty gracious” in conceding serial-number glitches.
Norrell testified that even if the gun seller tried to properly register the gun, the national registry would automatically reject any transfer form in which a serial number differed from that on an earlier form.
The Russian-made machine gun that investigators found in Mann’s house had been rewelded, with serial numbers from two separate guns visible. Holding the gun in court, he said he believes it is the same gun that records showed was transferred to Mann years earlier. He said the gun was also reflected in Mann’s logbook.
However, the 40mm grenades, “weapons of war,” found buried near Mann’s home aren’t legal for any private citizen to possess.
Investigators have testified that a different type of grenade - a black hand-held MK3A2 - was used in the homemade bomb that exploded outside Pierce’s house.
A man who on several occasions had done work on the security system at Mann’s home and who admittedly knew nothing about explosives, testified earlier in the trial that he had seen black grenades in the house that looked just like one sitting in the courtroom that prosecutors say is a replica of the one that was filled with TNT and exploded outsidePierce’s home.
Also, a retired firearms dealer has testified under a grant of immunity that he sold launcher-propelled and hand-held flash-bang grenades to Mann. He identified the one in court as looking like the hand-held ones he sold to Mann, although he said they weren’t filled with the high explosive TNT when he sold them.
In the bombing, someone used duct tape to attach a TNT-filled grenade to the back of a spare Nissan tire and rim that was propped up against Pierce’s Lexus when he walked out of his house to go to work. The tire exploded when he moved it.
Norrell testified that the inert black grenade in the courtroom isn’t unique.
Also on Friday, Thomas Hopen, a forensic chemist, testified that string found at the scene of the bombing, along with duct tape and black plastic found with the buried grenades, didn’t match string, tape or plastic seized from the Mann home.
Also, Priya Patel, the daughter of hotel operator Pramudhbha “Pete” Patel of near Memphis, with whom Mann co-owns several hotels, testified that a spare “doughnut” tire was removed from her 2002 Nissan Altima and replaced with a full-size spare in 2003 - six years before the bombing - because she had a flat tire that summer while driving from Memphis to St. Louis.
“My dad said he didn’t want me to be stranded with a doughnut, so we replaced the doughnut with a full-size spare,” she said.
Last week, an ATF agent said he suspected that Mann obtained the doughnut spare Nissan Altima tire used in the bombing from Pete Patel.
U.S. District Judge Brian Miller told jurors to return at 9 a.m. Monday, saying he expects the trial to end sometime next week.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/31/2010