Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit against Wisconsin-based retailer Fleet Farm for allegedly selling guns to straw purchasers, including a man who bought a 9 mm handgun that was used in the deadly shooting at the Seventh Street Truck Park in St. Paul last October.
According to the 38-page civil complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court, Fleet Farm repeatedly sold handguns to straw purchasers — people who illegally buy guns for others who cannot legally buy guns themselves, such as those convicted of felonies or with a record of committing domestic violence.
Straw buyers commonly falsely certify on the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Form 4473 that they are purchasing guns for themselves. However, according to the lawsuit, they do raise red flags, such as many purchases in a single transaction or separate one-gun transactions in short periods of time, particularly of multiple firearms of similar make, model and caliber.
The lawsuit alleges Fleet Farm sold at least 37 firearms to straw purchasers Jerome Fletcher Horton Jr. and Sarah Jean Elwood over 16 months, often selling multiple guns either in single transactions or over short time periods.
“These are the hallmark red flags of illegal gun trafficking by straw purchasers,” Ellison said at a Wednesday news conference announcing the lawsuit, which asserts claims against Fleet Farm for negligence, negligence per se, negligent entrustment, aiding and abetting and public nuisance.
One of the guns the retailer sold to Horton, 25, of Minneapolis, was fired on Oct. 10 at Seventh Street Truck Park, a shooting at the West Seventh Street bar that killed 27-year-old Marquisha Wiley of South St. Paul and injured 14 others.
ATF investigators traced the handgun found at the scene back to the Blaine Fleet Farm, where it was purchased in July by Horton, according to federal charges against him.
A Taurus Spectrum .380-caliber pistol that Fleet Farm sold to Elwood, 34, of Crystal, in January 2021 was allegedly used in a gun-pointing incident six months later in North Minneapolis. Police recovered the weapon 184 days after Fleet Farm sold it to Elwood, the lawsuit states.
At least five more guns that Fleet Farm sold to straw buyers have been recovered from people who are not permitted to have them, the lawsuit alleges.
Most of the guns Fleet Farm sold to the straw purchasers remain on the streets, according to Ellison.
“While law enforcement investigates and solves crime and local prosecutors prosecute crime, we all have a role to play in stopping gun trafficking and creating safer communities,” Ellison said. “For the first time in Minnesota, I’m using the power of the Attorney General’s office to hold a gun retailer accountable.”
Fleet Farm spokesperson Jon Austin said in a statement the Appleton-based retailer complies with all applicable federal and state gun laws and “devotes substantial resources to training and compliance.”
“We are confident that we will prevail in this matter,” he said.
Austin said they were told by the ATF after the Seventh Street Truck Park mass shooting that “our team members had ‘done nothing wrong’ and had complied with all applicable gun laws.”
CHARGES: HANDGUN TRACED TO STORES
The lawsuit alleges Fleet Farm sold 24 guns to Horton between mid-June and mid-October of last year, including multiple handguns of the same caliber on five different days.
“The sheer volume of Horton’s purchases put Fleet Farm on notice that he was not making bona fide purchases for himself but was instead straw purchasing firearms for others,” the lawsuit states.
Horton trafficked the guns to criminals and others prohibited from having them, according to the lawsuit. He sold six guns to middleman Gabriel Young-Duncan, who would then sell them to others. They included the Mossberg MC2C handgun that was fired by Devondre Trevon Phillips at Seventh Street Truck Park during an exchange of gunfire with Terry Lorenzo Brown Jr.
Phillips, 30, of Las Vegas, and Brown, 34, of St. Paul, have been charged in Ramsey County District Court with the murder of Wiley and multiple counts of attempted murder. Neither Brown nor Phillips are allowed to possess guns due to past convictions. Both men are awaiting jury trials on the murder charges.
On Wednesday, Young-Duncan was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in the straw purchasing scheme.
In a March plea agreement in federal court, Horton admitted to falsely representing himself as the end purchaser in connection with the 24 guns he bought at Fleet Farm and nine more at other federally licensed firearms dealers in the Twin Cities. Sentencing is set for Oct. 22.
The lawsuit alleges Fleet Farm sold 13 firearms to Elwood in a 12-month span from June 2020 to May 2021, including multiple handguns on the same day on four occasions. She pleaded guilty in federal court in December to one count of making false statements during the purchase of firearms and last month was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release.
“Even after the federal criminal actions against Elwood and her two co-conspirators, 12 of the 13 guns Fleet Farm sold to Elwood are still not recovered by law enforcement, are unaccounted for, and pose an ongoing danger to the health and safety of Minnesotans,” the lawsuit states.
LAWSUIT ASSERTS CLAIMS OF NEGLIGENCE
Ellison said Fleet Farm ignored the warning signs the buyers were straw purchasers and sold guns to them anyway, rather than refusing sales.
“Fleet Farm had a duty under the law to spot and stop this behavior,” he said. “Nevertheless, Fleet Farm continued to engage straw purchase transactions even though they knew or should have known that these customers were not not making legitimate purchases for themselves and were likely to resell them illegally.”
In the lawsuit, Ellison asks for injunctive relief, including strengthened oversight of Fleet Farm’s operations and increased training to prevent sales of guns to straw purchasers, as well as monetary relief, including disgorgement of the retailer’s profits from sales to straw purchasers.
The ATF has identified straw purchasing as the most common channel for the diversion of guns into the black market and illegal gun trafficking schemes, accounting for thousands of trafficked guns every year. Last year, 4,605 guns recovered in Minnesota were traced by the ATF to their first retail seller, including 3,417 pistols and 2,159 9 mm caliber guns.
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