Arkansas native who owns 3D gun company resigns after arrest

In this image made from a Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, video by KTRK-TV, Cody Wilson walks out of the Harris County jail in Houston.
In this image made from a Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, video by KTRK-TV, Cody Wilson walks out of the Harris County jail in Houston.

AUSTIN, Texas — The founder of a Texas company that sells blueprints for making untraceable 3-D printed guns has resigned from the firm after being arrested on charges of having sex with a 16-year-old girl, the company said Tuesday.

Cody Wilson tendered his resignation to his own company Friday evening to tend to "personal matters," said Paloma Heindorff, director of development for Austin-based Defense Distributed. Heindroff said she would be taking over Wilson's duties as director of the company.

"I'm a different person," she said during a news conference, noting she was a strong believer in the Second Amendment. "I'm not trying to replace him as a character."

She said she wouldn't comment on the criminal charges against the 30-year-old Wilson. But she said his leaving "was his own decision and we support it."

"Going forward, as it stands, he has no role in the company," she said during a news conference.

Wilson is accused of paying a 16-year-old girl $500 to have sex with him in Austin. He was arrested in Taiwan and brought back to the U.S. over the weekend. He has since been freed on $150,000 bond.

A federal court last month barred Wilson from posting the designs online for free. He then began selling them for any amount of money to U.S. customers through his website. Heindroff said there are no plans to stop doing that. She said morale at the firm remains high.

Wilson, a self-described "crypto-anarchist," has said "governments should live in fear of their citizenry."

Wilson, a Cabot native, first published downloadable designs for a 3D-printed firearm in 2013. The plans were downloaded about 100,000 times until the State Department ordered him to cease, contending the effort violated federal export laws since some of the blueprints were downloaded by people outside the United States.

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