By Justin Berton The San Francisco Chronicle
RICHMOND, Calif. — A former Richmond police officer pleaded guilty Friday to buying firearms for young men at his security firm and trying to derail a federal inquiry into the purchase.
Danny Harris, 31, admitted in U.S. District Court in Oakland that he had registered two handguns in his name, sold them to employees of the security business he ran during his off-duty hours, then tried to head off an investigation by forcing one of the men to return the gun.
U.S. District Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler said the plea agreement with prosecutors called for Harris to serve no more than three years in prison. The maximum sentence for the charges he faced is 40 years.
Harris will be sentenced June 19 by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken.
He changed his plea from not guilty two days after a former colleague on the Richmond force, Ray Thomas, 34, admitted his role in trying to thwart a federal grand jury's inquiry into dealings connected to the pair's side business, Strategic Reliance Group.
Prosecutors said Harris sought in 2009 to arm youthful employees to patrol some of the city's most dangerous housing complexes.
Harris took $500 from two men, both of whom were under 21, in exchange for guns registered in his name, prosecutors said. Such arrangements, known as straw purchases, are illegal. Federal law also requires gun buyers to be older than 21.
Authorities said that once Harris and Thomas learned a federal investigation was under way, they tried to retrieve one of the guns and retaliate against the young man who refused to give it back.
"He's sorry for all of it," said Paul Wolf, Harris' attorney. "He was under a tremendous amount of pressure from the investigation into him and his business, and he was worried about his job."
The guilty pleas spare the officers a trial, where prosecutors planned to argue that the men had hired a Concord private investigator to frame their supervisor, whom they believed was responsible for the investigation.
The officers also paid the investigator, Christopher Butler, to arrange the drunken driving arrest of the employee who would not return the gun, prosecutors said.
In court papers, attorneys for Harris disputed the assertion and said Butler and his employees "overreached and went beyond the instructions of their clients."
Copyright 2012 San Francisco Chronicle
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