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A former Ford Heights police officer whose gun store has sold more than 100 weapons that later were used in crimes was arrested Thursday as authorities raided his south suburban business and home.
Philip Stutts, 47, was arrested at his Sauk Village store Thursday morning, a day after being charged with illegally possessing a firearm that wasn't registered to him, officials said. That carries a possible 25-year prison sentence.
The charge involves one of two sawed-off shotguns seized on May 10 during a search of Stutts Firearms and Ammunition, officials said.
Two more search warrants were executed Thursday by a team of federal agents and local agencies, and more than 250 guns were seized from the shop because Stutts' state firearms card was stripped from him upon the arrest, said Tom Ahern, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Seventy-one more were seized for the same reason from Stutts' Chicago Heights home, he said.
While many of those guns are apparently legal AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s, a "handful" of them may be illegal, fully automatic weapons, he said. And parts often used to convert semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic guns also were recovered, along with books on making disposable silencers and modifying guns, officials said.
Investigators also found paperwork stemming from the suspected sale of a .380-caliber pistol to a minor, officials said.
"More charges are possible," Ahern said, adding over 100 weapons sold by Stutts' shop over the past 15 years were used in crimes.
Stutts was released from custody on the condition he not possess, sell, transfer or receive any weapons. Because he was the only licensed seller at his shop, "in effect, Mr. Stutts' firearms and ammunition business is now paralyzed," said U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
But he still can sell "things like holsters . . . and so forth," Ahern said.
As Stutts went through a court hearing, his wife, Debra, watched police rummage through their home. "The sawed-off shotgun was behind the counter, in the office, for self-protection," she said in a phone interview. "That's all it was. They didn't find anything else illegal. Nothing."
She said Thursday's raid was part of a larger effort "to shut down the smaller gun shops. And it doesn't help when you're the only black one around."
Stutts was a Ford Heights police officer until 1989, when he was fired for what he said was providing evidence to prosecutors of corruption within the department. He later won a $150,000 federal lawsuit against the suburb and has since operated his gun shop and firing range.
