COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. _ More than three dozen handguns mailed from Colorado Springs to New York City were sold to criminals there, including suspects in a daring daylight heist and brutal rape at a Greenwich Village sporting goods store, federal agents said Monday.
At least three former Fort Carson soldiers allegedly were involved in the gun trafficking, which allegedly occurred between June 1 and Aug. 19, said Joe Gordon, agent in charge of the Colorado Springs office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
However, only one, Clifford Anthony Phipps, 23, of Queens, N.Y., was arrested on a federal charge of unlawfully receiving and transporting firearms across state lines. If found guilty, Phipps faces up to 10 years in federal prison and $250,000 in fines.
According to federal documents, the guns were purchased at two local gun shops for a total of $5,000 but resold on New York City streets to ``violent criminals'' for more than twice that amount. Gordon said tougher gun laws in New York have driven up the price of illegal guns.
The link between gun purchases here and crimes in New York was solidified in August after police began tracing guns recovered during the investigation of the Greenwich Village robbery.
On Aug. 28, three armed bandits posing as shoppers entered a Foot Locker store and forced eight people _ five employees, two customers and a friend of an employee _ into a bathroom. The robbers then singled out an 18-year-old woman and took her to another part of the store, where they raped and sodomized her.
On Aug. 30, New York police arrested Ricardo Tucker, 22, a paroled felon, in Brooklyn and recovered a 9 mm handgun. Federal agents traced the gun to a licensed dealer in Colorado Springs, who sold the gun June 1.
During that investigation, police recovered four more handguns also bought in Colorado Springs.
According to federal documents, former Fort Carson soldier Phipps asked a person still living in Colorado Springs to buy weapons one at a time and mail them to an address in Queens. By purchasing the weapons that way, they failed to raise the suspicion of gun dealers or those processing what appeared to be legal transactions.
After tracing the origin of the handguns, agents pieced together the purchases, and a federal warrant was issued for Phipps' arrest, Gordon said. On Sept. 10, local ATF agents flew to New York, where they arrested Phipps in his apartment along with a second person suspected in the Foot Locker heist and rape.
Phipps has not been implicated by New York officials in the robbery and rape case.
Phipps, who was an Army medic, left the military and Fort Carson in September 1995. According to federal records, Phipps and another Fort Carson soldier were given an administrative discipline in 1993 for attempting to mail a handgun. Further details about Phipps' military background were not immediately available.
The two former soldiers allegedly working with Phipps have not been arrested. At least one provided extensive information about the gun purchases to ATF agents.
The case against Phipps illustrates the problems of gun sales in this country, Gordon said.
``There are literally hundreds of agencies working on drug trafficking,'' he said. ``We know this is a smaller criminal activity than drug trafficking, but it is just as deadly, if not more so.''
Gordon said it's easy for criminals to move weapons.
``It's really low risk, unfortunately, in areas where we don't have procedures in place,'' he said.
In Colorado Springs, the ATF and police have been partners since 1993 in ``Project Young Guns.'' The idea is to trace handguns used in crimes to their source. The project has led to the prosecution of about 12 people on federal firearms charges.
(c) 1996, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph. Springs, Colo.). Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
