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Authorities who searched the vehicle and Lafayette Township home of Joseph Rubino, 59, after the July 2019 crash in Allamuchy said they also found white supremacist and racially-charged propaganda, along with illegal drugs.
A medical chopper took Rubino and his 55-year-old passenger to Morristown Medical Center, New Jersey State Police said at the time. Both were seriously injured, they said.
Search warrants were obtained after troopers spotted part of the arsenal in the Chevy van while Rubino was being extricated, they added.
Altogether, Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Rachael Honig said, State Police seized:
- an Intratec Arms Model TEC-DC9 semi-automatic assault handgun;
- a Cobray Arms Mac-11 9mm semi-automatic assault pistol with a high capacity magazine;
- a Keltec CMR30 .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle loaded with sixteen (16) .22 caliber hollow-point cartridges;
- a High Standard Derringer .22 caliber double-barrel handgun;
- a Polymer 80 9mm semi-automatic handgun;
- an Ithaca M-66 20-gauge single shotgun;
- a Remington Model 700 .223 caliber bold action rifle with scope;
- a Thompson Center .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle with scope;
- a Remington Model 870 Wingmaster 12-gauge pump shotgun;
- a New England Firearms 20-gauge single shot shotgun;
- a Remington Model 760 .300 Savage pump rifle;
- a Glenfield Mod 60 .22 LR caliber semi-automatic rifle;
- two sawed-off double-barrel shotgun barrels
- several high-capacity magazines;
- numerous silencers;
- an assault rifle scope;
- a grenade launcher;
- a ballistics vest and numerous additional ammunitions of various calibers.
They also found 15 pounds of pot, 2½ ounces of meth and 200 marijuana vape cartridges, as well as bumper stickers with common white supremacist and neo-Nazi “SS Bolts” symbols and a “N****r Owner’s Manual” with racist material that purported to be an instruction manual for owning a slave, authorities said at the time.
Rubino reportedly was stabbed in a fight with Hell’s Angels at a Warren County bar in January 2014. He and his wife filed a lawsuit against the club, the outcome of which couldn’t be determined.
His attorney contended following the State Police arrest that Rubino was a gun dealer who legally possessed the weapons.
Federal authorities countered that Rubino was put on probation for check kiting in 1999 -- and, as a convicted felon, couldn’t legally have firearms or ammunition.
Rather than face trial, Rubino took a deal from the government, pleading guilty late last week to one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and one count of possession of firearms and ammunition by a convicted felon.
He'll have to serve whatever plea-bargained sentence he receives because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
U.S. District Judge William J. Martini scheduled sentencing for Dec. 14.
Honig credited the New Jersey State Police and special agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with the investigation leading to the plea, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Naazneen Khan of her Organized Crime and Gangs Unit in Newark. The U.S. attorney also thanked the Warren and Sussex county prosecutors’ offices.
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