JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Department of Justice on Monday announced that Gregory Austin Eward, 25, of Live Oak, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and transfer unregistered firearm silencers. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison.
According to the DOJ, the plea agreement states that Eward and his father, Dustin, who is also a co-defendant, operated Eward Research Inc., a company that marketed and sold firearm silencers over the internet. In lightly coded language, the DOJ says their website, ewardresearch.com, advertised the sale of combinations of parts designed and intended for use in assembling firearm silencers – never using the term “silencer,” but referring to individual components as “toobz,” threaded “end caps,” “spacers,” and “spools.”
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Sales could be completed with either cash or cryptocurrency, the DOJ wrote. The website included photographs of the items for sale, which were identifiable as components of firearms silencers.
In 2018, Dustin Eward was interviewed by two FBI Special Agents. He told the agents that he lived with his son and that they operated a business out of their home. According to Dustin Eward, the DOJ said, they produced and sold “solvent traps” and adaptors for firearms.
An undercover agent in 2022 ordered three silencers from the Ewards, the DOJ said, whihc were examined by an ATF firearms enforcement officer who concluded the designs were consistent in design and construction with firearms silencers that he had examined in the past and he recognized the devices to be firearms silencers.
The DOJ wrote:
“The officer noted that to make the silencers functional, an end-user would need to drill center holes through the silencers’ baffles and end cap; the officer estimated, however, that this task only would require five to ten minutes to complete. Notably, also included in the parcels that the Ewards had mailed were 3D-printed tools, including a tool designed to act as a “jig” to accurately guide the drilling of center holes through the silencers. These silencers were not registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, as required by federal law.”
Photo Gallery: Inside the home of suspects Dustin and Greg Eward
Prosecutors presented photographs of firearms and ammunition found at the Ewards’ home during the execution of the search warrant, outlining that the following was found:
- 13,800 rounds of assorted ammunition
- 105 firearms
- 35 silencers
- Enough silencer parts to make hundreds of silencers
- 2 zip guns
- Four 50-caliber weapons
- Several fully automatic trigger packs
- Demilitarized machine guns
Dustin Eward is scheduled to proceed to trial in June 2023. According to the DOJ, he is charged by indictment with conspiracy to possess and distribute unregistered silencers, possession of unregistered silencers, transfer of unregistered silencers, and threatening to assault and murder a federal law enforcement officer.
An indictment is a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.