LOS ANGELES
A San Fernando Valley man was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in federal prison for illegally selling firearms, including dozens of so-called “ghost guns” and pound quantities of methamphetamine.
U.S.District Judge André Birotte Jr. sentenced Julio Ernesto Lopez-Menendez, 27, of Reseda.
Lopez-Menendez pleaded guilty on February 3 to one count of distribution of methamphetamine and one count of engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license.
He has been in federal custody since April 2022.
From January 2022 to April 2022, Lopez-Menendez sold at least 89 firearms and 20 rounds of ammunition in nine transactions to a buyer.
The firearms sold included at least 62 firearms that lacked serial numbers and are commonly referred to as “ghost guns.”
Of those ghost guns, four were short-barreled rifles whose barrel lengths Lopez-Menendez knew were each substantially less than the legally required 16 inches.
During a February 2022 telephone call with a buyer, Lopez-Menendez said the possession of shotguns or rifles with short barrels was “super illegal.”
Lopez-Menendez federally registered none of these short-barreled rifles.
He does not have a federal firearms license. He does not have any firearms registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, the central registry for all items regulated under the National Firearms Act, according to court documents.
Lopez-Menendez also sold to a buyer a total of 17 pounds of methamphetamine on four occasions, including one sale in which he sold 4.2 kilograms (9.2 pounds) of the drug to the buyer.
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Southern California Drug Task Force, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Los Angeles Police Department investigated this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Chou of the Violent and Organized Crimes Section prosecuted this case.