Jury convicts Iowa police chief of lying to feds to acquire machine guns
The police chief of a small Iowa town was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury of lying to federal authorities to obtain machine guns. Prosecutors say he sold them for his own profit.
The jury convicted 47-year-old Adair Police Chief Brad Wendt of conspiring to make false statements to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, making false statements to the agency and illegally possessing a machine gun. He was convicted of 11 of the 15 charges.
Wendt was indicted in December 2022, accused of lying to the agency in official letters asking to buy the machine guns or see them demonstrated.
Authorities say he bought machine guns for police and then sold them for a personal profit of nearly $80,000. Trial materials showed he bought machine guns for his gun shop, including a .50-caliber machine gun that he mounted on his own armored Humvee, using the letters, federal prosecutors said.
“In a stark abuse of the position of trust he held, Brad Wendt exploited his position as chief of police to unlawfully obtain and sell weapons for his own personal benefit,” FBI Omaha Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel said Thursday in a statement. While so many law enforcement officers across our country work to protect our communities and enforce the law, Brad Wendt did the exact opposite.”
Wendt’s attorney, Nick Klinefeldt, called the jury’s decision a “split verdict,” saying jurors found his client acted in good faith and did not intend to be unfair to the ATF.
“Unfortunately, the jury concluded that some of Brad’s subsequent statements were technically incorrect and that he broke the law by taking a machine gun he purchased with his own money for the Adair Police Department to a machine gun shooting that was available for both the public and the public. and law enforcement,” Klinefeldt said.
The jury reached its decision because of erroneous jury instructions, Klinefeldt said, adding that Wendt plans to appeal the verdict.
Wendt’s sentencing is scheduled for June 14. He faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years for machine gun possession.
Wendt has been police chief of Adair, which has about 800 residents, since July 2018. He was listed as police chief on the city’s website on Thursday. A telephone message left at the town hall was not answered.
Another man, Robert Williams, was also charged, but his charges were dismissed last year.