15 years for felon who built arsenal

ANCHORAGE — A Wasilla man has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of firearms and conspiring to make false statements.

Gregory Dale Hayes, 55, was sentenced June 9 in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Anchorage, judge Ralph Beistline said at sentencing that Hayes had an extensive criminal history and had “basically been a criminal his entire adult life.”

The judge, according to prosecutors, expressed a need to protect the public from Hayes. The case began back in December 2008 when Hayes was pulled over in a car his girlfriend was driving. The car was stopped on a tip from Sportsman’s Warehouse about fishy ammunition purchases. The box of ammo in question was on the floorboard.

Special Agent Thomas J. King with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives details in an affidavit filed in court how the investigation proceeded from there through a slew of interviews with gun store employees and owners, as well as various confidential and non-confidential informants.

According to King, Hayes would buy guns online, have them delivered to gun stores, then have one of two women pick them up — one his then-current girlfriend, the other his former girlfriend. Sometimes he would go into stores, look around, ask questions and leave, and one of the women would come in later and make purchases.

The guns were mostly stored at a home on Hemmer Drive in Settlers Bay where Hayes had two gun safes he was loading up with weapons. The home belonged to his girlfriend’s parents. King wrote that Hayes told people he stashed them there so his probation officer wouldn’t find them.

In total, federal prosecutors alleged Hayes possessed 28 guns, including semi-automatic handguns and rifles with high-capacity magazines. King wrote that the arsenal also included a flak jacket and grenade bodies with fuses attached. The girlfriend told law enforcement Hayes intended to drill holes in the grenade bodies and fill them with black powder.

King got a chance to interview the girlfriend after she was arrested and sentenced to serve time on a misdemeanor charge. During the interview he confronted her with statements she’d made that her boyfriend explained away the guns as “a good investment.”

“People don’t ordinarily buy firearms, shoot them, take the time to load them and keep them loaded, buy bulletproof vests and components for improvised explosive devices, and look into the acquisition of silencers strictly for investment purposes,” King wrote that he told the girlfriend.

The woman, King wrote, “hung her head and then replied, ‘I didn’t think he was serious.’” She then tried to downplay some statements Hayes had made about wanting to put a GPS tracker on his probation officer’s car, track him and “do something” when he found him.

The charges Hayes faced carried a maximum penalty of life in prison. In addition to the 15 years he will serve, he gave up all the guns agents seized.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.