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Michael Maresca, 34, has been held in the Bergen County Jail since investigators arrested him in November 2020 outside the Macarthur Avenue home he grew up in for trafficking the untraceable guns in and around Paterson.
Maresca, who operated an aquarium installation and maintenance company, had sold two “ghost guns” for $1,650 each to an undercover investigator at the residence, they said.
One of them had an illegal 15-round magazine loaded with prohibited hollow-point bullets, Acting New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin said.
Ghost guns, which are illegal in New Jersey, are assembled from parts kits that can be bought online. They’re not registered and don’t have serial numbers, making them difficult to trace.
The weapons seized included two assault rifles, a fully operational ghost gun, a complete but disassembled ghost gun, two shotguns, a partial ghost gun and a pellet gun, authorities said at the time.
Also found, they said, were 18 illegal large-capacity magazines, “large amounts” of ammunition -- including illegal hollow-point and armor piercing rounds – and firearm building kits.
The November 2020 arrest came four months after Maresca was arrested -- and subsequently released -- on weapons charges in Ramsey, the attorney general said.
A grand jury in Trenton subsequently indicted Maresca and two other men on charges of conspiring to purchase handgun kits, ghost gun parts and large-capacity magazines that were shipped to New Jersey, where Maresca assembled and sold them, Platkin said.
The same grand jury also indicted Maresca in connection with the July 2020 weapons arrest in Ramsey, the attorney general said.
Rather than risk a trial, Maresca took a deal from prosecutors, pleading guilty last month to possessing an assault firearm and buying the parts to assemble an untraceable gun in exchange for leniency at sentencing.
He was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Christopher R. Kazlau in Hackensack earlier this month to six years in prison -- 42 months of it without parole -- under the agreement.
Detective Keith Franco was the lead investigator for the state Division of Criminal Justice’s Gangs & Organized Crime North Unit, assisted by fellow detectives in the unit and both Paterson and Ramsey police.
Deputy Attorney General Angel Hector of the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau secured Maresca's plea and sentence.
ALSO SEE: WHAT ARE GHOST GUNS? (Brady United)
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