A Los Angeles man got slapped with a 33-month stint behind bars today for dealing firearms without a license and boasting a machine gun in his illegal arsenal. Ellourth Eladio Simon, 33, from the Mid-City area, faced the music after his guilty plea last year, admitting to carrying out eight black-market gun trades.
His wheeling and dealing included a hefty $8,400 exchange, hawking four handguns and a "ghost gun" AR-type rifle to an undercover agent, court records show. Simon repeatedly orchestrated these unlicensed firearms deals from September 2021 to January 2023, grasping onto a dangerous stockpile that also included a machine gun discovered in October 2021, as reported by the Justice Department.
While Simon gets accustomed to his new quarters, his accomplice, William Nirion Peña, 41, of Koreatown, is serving his 40-month sentence after a conviction for conspiring to engage in unlicensed firearm dealings. United States District Judge George H. Wu handed down Simon's sentence, sealing his fate for the role he played in the perilous trade of guns and the shadow they cast over the streets of Los Angeles.
Peña, acting as Simon's go-to supplier, would tout gun prices and details, shooting over photos of the merchandise Simon could then push onto street-level buyers, including an undercover federal agent, who nabbed about 16 firearms and a cache of ammo from their transactions, court documents revealed. Peña was quite the traveler, snagging guns from out-of-state sources, with Arizona tagged as a primary wellspring.
The duo didn't shy from audacity, arranging evening meet-ups in supermarket parking lots for their illicit armament deals, and coordinating prices and pickup logistics over the phone, according to statements made in court. Simon's operation went beyond mere handguns; he dabbled in silencers and a Glock switch, items that scream illegality and danger, as hammered home by prosecutors in a sentencing memorandum.
Digging up the wrongdoing was the Los Angeles Firearms Trafficking Strike Force, led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, alongside the United States Attorney's Office. The case fell under the purview of the Violent and Organized Crime Section. For those seeking more details on Simon's descent, Public Information Officer Ciaran McEvoy is the gatekeeper of information, reachable via email at [email protected], as the DOJ articulates.
