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The Bergen County Police SWAT team was called to Don Scott’s West Crescent Avenue house after the tenant said Scott pointed a gun at him during a dispute on the back patio last summer.
Authorities said Scott didn’t have a permit for a defaced Ruger .357 Magnum that they said turned up during a search of the house.
They also found several other guns, two sets of metal knuckles, hollow-nosed bullets and an explosive fireworks device with artillery-level power that didn’t have “an explainable lawful purpose,” according to an 11-count indictment returned against Scott by a Bergen County grand jury.
Scott, 57, has been held on $100,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail since his July 10 arrest.
Prosecutors said they offered him a five-year prison sentence, with parole eligibility after three years, in exchange for a guilty plea, but Scott declined to take it.
The charges against him include:
- pointing a firearm with “manifest indifference to human life”;
- several counts of firearms possession, including a separate charge for having a defaced firearm and another for “using it unlawfully against another person”;
- having an unregistered assault weapon with a large-capacity magazine;
- illegally possessing bronze and silver knuckles, as well as holow-nosed bullets;
- illegally possessing a Class 1.3G explosive device measuring 11-3/4” TBB-1601 artillery without an explainable lawful purpose.
STORY by Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
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