Connecticut Co-workers Plead Guilty to Making Machine Guns at Home

His machine gun manufacturing gig on the side was over.

Up until the summer of 2017, Sean Dey, appeared every bit the 39-year-old family man with the grey minivan parked in the driveway.

But it turns out that the cozy Torrington, Connecticut abode's garage doubled as a workshop to build at least two machine guns; one that he sold on the sly through his 69-year-old co-worker George Jaiman, and another that he freelanced for $1,500 on his own to an informant, according to federal court documents filed in Hartford, Connecticut federal court..

Last Thursday, Dey copped a guilty plea for manufacturing an AK-47-style and AR-style machine guns, suppressors, and other firearms.

According to a release by the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Connecticut, he filed a guilty plea agreement to one count of conspiracy to engage unlawfully in the business of selling firearms and one count of unlawful possession and transfer of a machine gun.

A day later, the release adds, Jaiman, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, also pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful possession of a machine gun.

Dey could face 15 years in prison while Jaiman may get a decade behind bars when both men are sentenced in January.

The machine guns were allegedly the handiwork of Dey.

On Aug. 20, 2017, supplied Jaiman (referred to as a "convicted felon") with World War II-style "Sten machine gun and suppressor" which was then gifted to Jaiman's son Phillip, according to the men's federal indictment filed back in May.

Newsweek's attempts to reach the attorney for the elder Jaiman and Dey were not immediately returned.

It's unclear if Phillip "Bo" Jaiman, who is named in the indictment, is going to defend himself against the various charges his dad and Dey pleaded guilty to. Attempts to reach his attorney were unsuccessful.

Nine days after their original exchange, Jaiman's son Phillip, the indictment states, allegedly "transferred to a convicted felon an AK-style machinegun." Then, on September 18, Philip repeated the same machinegun run with another Dey-manufactured AK-style rifle.

A year later, it appears Dey decided make a bid to cut out the middleman and become a machinegun manufacturer and proprietor.

Dey was asked to perform a rush job.

The buyer (who it turned out to be a confidential informant working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF) needed what he called "one of those 'things,'" referring to machine guns, according to a criminal complaint filed in April against Dey.

A series of cell phone calls and texts from March 29 were documented to prep a rush job of a week to manufacture two machine guns and then a buy between the informant and Dey.

"Dey stated that he had enough parts in his house to make two, either a Sten or a 'shorty,'" the complaint details.

The informant, according to the complaint, asked Dey in their conversations if the weapon was "Fully auto" (he responded affirmatively) and then asked what a shorty was, and Dey allegedly responded it was a "Commando." A Commando is often favored by special forces for its compactness and is described online as an automatic firearm that pistol-caliber cartridges.

They agreed on $1,500 and the week turnaround to supply the weapon.

That same evening, Dey alerted the informant that he need more time to order a sear (a trigger mechanism), but the complaint suggests, Dey could "make his own."

The decision was for Dey to save the time and go ahead and "make the sear."

The meet was then set for 10 p.m. on April 3 in the parking lot of a UPS warehouse in Stratford, Connecticut -- 56 miles from Dey's home, the complaint states.

Dey allegedly showed up on time and with the machine gun, which lacked serial numbers, manufacture details and contained strange stamping imprints.

The firearm was described in the complaint as "tightly wrapped in a black plastic garbage bag."

The informant took the weapon and set it in the back seat of his car and provided Dey with the cash.

"It's a lot of 20s," the informant mused, before asking, "$1,500, right?"

Dey allegedly replied, "Yeah."

After counting the cash, Dey asked the informant what the rush was about and he was told the buyer "was just an a--hole," who had the money ready, the complaint confirms.

Dey allegedly assured the informant the machine gun was tested and ready for use, by letting him know, "I put three mags through it, so it should have no problems with anything."

The following day, the complaint reads, an ATF agent field-tested the firearm and the result "indicated that [it] was a machine gun."

Machine guns, defined as an automatic firearm that rapidly shoots a cluster of rounds of ammunition per minute, have a longstanding history.

Back in the 18th century, the first machine gun was dubbed a defense or Puckle Gun (sired by an Englishman named James Puckle). Richard Gatling changed warfare on the battlefield during the Civil War when he created a weapon fired by a turn of a crank.

Then in 1885, Hiram Maxim went public with the first fully-automatic machine gun, which fired a salvo of 500 rounds per minute.

Then came the Tommy Gun, or as they became known on the streets as "Chicago Typewriters for their rep as synonymous with gang violence of the era.

Machine guns are heavily regulated with stringent record keeping dating back to the passing of the National Firearms Act of 1934.

The law forced stringent guidelines on machine gun manufacturers and forced owners to register.

In 1986, the feds put in place the Firearm Owners Protection Act which expanded the original law even further. The new version put a ban on the possession and transfer of new automatic firearms and parts that expire bullets without stoppage.

For the machine gun to be legal, it must be manufactured before May 19, 1986 -- the cutoff date that the ATF imposed.

Of all the states in the union, Connecticut, with its 4 million residents as well as suffering one of the deadliest mass shootings when Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 first graders back in 2012, happens to have the largest amount of machine guns with 52,965 registered, according to The Firearms Commerce Report of 2017.

According to the state's gun laws, residents "may purchase Machine Guns if they are capable of a 'fully automatic only' rate of fire." As for dealers, the law states they must be licensed to sell machine guns and have all of the required federal paperwork required.