Cambria County set to return 306 guns to resident - after he pays $1,200 bill

Posted: Thursday, April 2, 2015 12:54 am

By Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

http://www.tribdem.com/news/gun-collector-gets-bill/article_554553c...

file photo

BOB KOLAR

EBENSBURG – In the words of Cambria County Sheriff Bob Kolar: some people collect model cars, some people collect motorcycles, some people collect guns.

One middle-aged Cambria County man is a collector of the latter. When an angry lady friend decided to strike out, it was in the direction of those guns that she struck.

A total of 306 rifles and shotguns – some of which the woman alleged had been stolen – were removed from the home by Kolar and his deputies.

“We wore bulletproof vests. We had no idea what we where getting in to,” Kolar said Wednesday.

In the end, none of the guns was stolen. A two-inch thick stack of papers detailing each gun’s make, model and serial number rested on the sheriff's desk – information secured through the National Crime Information Center of the FBI.

The gun owner, who, at the request of authorities is not being named out of concern that his collection could become a target for thieves, is left with a $1,200 bill, the cost incurred by the sheriff's office for the confiscation.

The drama unfolded a few weeks ago when the estranged girlfriend contacted authorities about the guns. She was seeking a protection from abuse order because she feared for her safety.

Following standard procedure, a temporary PFA was approved by a judge, and based on the information provided by the woman, a court order was placed for the sheriff to confiscate all weapons and ammunition belonging to the man.

Kolar and about a half dozen of his deputies and two local police officers acted immediately to carry out the order.

A few days later, at a hearing in front of a judge, the woman and the man offered their sides of a stormy relationship. Afterward, the judge refused to impose a permanent PFA and ordered the temporary PFA to be vacated.

“It was one of those he said, she said,” Kolar said of the hearing in front of Senior Judge F. Joseph Leahey.

With Cambria, a rural county, confiscation of guns is not uncommon, said an employee in the prothonotary’s office, where the PFA orders are filed.

“I’ve been doing this for  10 years, and this is an odd thing,” the clerk said.

It’s not uncommon to see confiscation of five or 10 guns, she said, adding, “This it totally out of the ordinary.”

However, the sheriff’s costs of confiscation being passed on to the gun owner is not uncommon, court officials said.

The guns will be returned to the owner, something he has to do within 48 hours after he is contacted and only after he pays upon the confiscation costs, Kolar said.

He must also provide his own transport and manpower to remove the guns from their tightly secured location in the bowels of the courthouse.

That will be no easy task, Kolar said, reflecting on the six hours it took him, his deputies and others to load them into a rented U-Haul trailer to get them to Ebensburg.

The day the confiscation order was issued, Kolar, unaware of what his department would be walking into, waited until they knew the man would be coming home from work.

They intercepted him, outlined what was going to happen and moved into the house.

“He wasn’t happy with it, but he even helped us with some of the guns providing information about them,” Kolar said.

Part of the laborious effort was documenting information about each rifle and shotgun as they were taken from the display units lining the walls of the first and second floors of the home.

Some of the guns were stored in four gun safes.

No guns were found in the man’s vehicle, Kolar said.

“He told us that he started collecting guns when he was 16, and they were all lined up on the walls. He does take good care of his guns,” Kolar said

The sheriff and his team spent more than six hours recording and loading the guns, along with enough ammunition to fill half of a large trash can.

While some of the guns are considered antiques, most were produced in the 1900s and many are no longer in production, adding to their value, Kolar said.

The task of getting the guns into a secure location at the courthouse had seven deputies working most of the next day, transporting them from a U-Haul to the unknown location where they were stacked on the floor.

The deputies placed boards on the floor followed by pads from the rental company to protect the guns.

“Like I said, some people collect model cars, some people collect motorcycles. This guy collects guns,” Kolar said. “This was a lot of guns. Our previous record was 46.”

Kathy Mellott is a reporter for The Tribune-Democrat. She can be reached at (814) 539-5328. Follow her on Twitter @KathyMellottTD.