by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

Federal agents arrested a Bellevue, WA, gun collector and held him for 23 days as a “material witness” in the ongoing investigation into the October 2001 slaying of anti-gun federal prosecutor Thomas Wales in Seattle.

Wales was president of Washington CeaseFire, the Northwest’s most active gun control organization, at the time of his death. He was shot to death while sitting at a desk in the basement of his home in the fashionable Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle.

The murderer apparently used a Makarov pistol with a replacement barrel made by Federal Arms Corporation (FAC), a Minneapolis, MN-based firm. The barrel was chambered for the 9x18 Makarov cartridge, but the killer apparently used .380 ACP cartridges for the crime and the FBI has spent the past three years conducting a nationwide search to find the murder weapon. Some 3,500 Makarov replacement barrels were sold by FAC, and the FBI has already contacted more than 2,000 owners of those barrels, taken their guns for ballistics testing, and then returned the guns.

At the time this story began unfolding two years ago, many Makarov owners expressed concerns that the government was creating a de facto registry of Makarov pistols.

The Bellevue gun collector, represented by Seattle attorney Eric Stahlfeld, may have purchased two such replacement barrels and owns several Makarov pistols. He only has one of the barrels now, which has not been fitted to any of his pistols.

Stahlfeld told Gun Week that he has been assured that his client is not a subject of the on-going investigation, nor is he a suspect in the Wales case. He declined to discuss the case further.

An FBI source explained that someone can be held as a material witness when it is believed that individual may have information he or she is not providing voluntarily, and when it is possible the witness may leave the area and be beyond the reach of the authorities. The gun collector, who is not being named because he has not been charged with a crime, is known to travel for extended periods outside the country.

When a person is held as a material witness, it is the same as being held as a suspect, an FBI source said. They are held in a jail cell, and are not free to go about a daily business or personal routine.

Gun Week broke the story about the FBI’s nationwide Makarov search in July 2003. It was the first major development in the case since Wales was killed.

The FBI has been focusing its attention on a former commercial pilot in Bellevue who had been prosecuted by Wales a few years ago on fraud charges. That case was later settled and no criminal charges were brought against the pilot. There is no indication that the gun collector who was jailed for more than three weeks knew the former pilot.

The gun collector was held at the federal detention center in Sea-Tac, WA, from Jan. 11 through Feb. 3.

Although he was released, the collector may not be out of trouble. His home was searched by the FBI on a sealed warrant Jan. 13 while he was being held. During that search, agents saw several firearms in the collector’s home and garage, and evidently notified the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), because several hours after the first search, ATF agents initiated a search of their own on a second warrant. They were reportedly looking for evidence of federal firearms violations that may have included looking for components of machine guns. ATF agents took 16 firearms in their search.

The gun collector formerly had a federal firearms license (FFL) and is currently fighting to have that license renewed. He has filed a lawsuit against the ATF and a federal bench trial is scheduled for Oct. 10 before Judge Franklin D. Burgess.

In September 2002, Customs agents at the border crossing in Blaine, WA, seized the gun collector’s van. Search dogs reportedly zeroed in on a hidden compartment in the van that was empty, and the gun collector said the compartment—located under the van—had been built for securing his personal property. The van was subsequently returned, but the collector has sued the Customs Service for damages. A trial is scheduled for July 11 in federal court in Seattle before Judge Robert S. Lasnik.

The government is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Wales’ killer. Last year, the FBI even placed advertisements about that in the Gun News, a publication of the Washington Arms Collectors.