LOS ANGELES
A California lawyer and former Rialto Police officer was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison for possessing unregistered firearms, silencers and a hand grenade inside his pickup truck during a law enforcement stop, officials stated.
Sergio Lopez de Tirado, 44, of Corona, was sentenced by United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin after he pleaded guilty in April 2019 to one count of possession of unregistered firearms and a destructive device.
On December 21, 2018, law enforcement found Lopez de Tirado asleep and apparently intoxicated in the passenger’s seat of a pickup truck that was parked with its doors wide open and blocking a driveway in Norco.
Upon searching the vehicle, law enforcement found two unregistered firearm silencers, including one that was attached to a semiautomatic rifle; an unregistered 9mm semiautomatic short-barreled rifle; and an unregistered hand grenade, according to officials.
Law enforcement also found high-capacity magazines, ammunition, knives, a baton, brass knuckles, a Kevlar military-style helmet, and small bags containing marijuana and methamphetamine.
That same evening, officers located enough bomb-making materials inside Lopez de Tirado’s home to construct several more homemade bombs.
Lopez de Tirado admitted in his plea agreement that he had not registered the short-barrel rifle, the silencers or the hand grenade with the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.