DA opens criminal probe into Contra Costa Sheriff volunteer who was allowed to take gun parts, ammo from department gun range

The Contra Costa District Attorney served a search warrant at the home of a sheriff gun range volunteer, seizing 132 guns, including three identified as illegal.

CLAYTON — Federal and state authorities are actively investigating potential illegal gun possession and weapons manufacturing by a Contra Costa Sheriff’s volunteer who was allowed to take thousands of gun parts and ammunition from a department gun range, in apparent violation of state law.

As part of the criminal probe, federal and state authorities led by the Contra Costa District Attorney served a search warrant at the former Clayton residence of sheriff volunteer John King, seizing 132 guns and roughly 20 other items, including sheriff’s department evidence bags — with case numbers as recent as 2019 — full of ammunition, kits for manufacturing guns, and a Contra Costa Sheriff’s badge.

The DA was responding to a tip that King was using gun parts he obtained from the sheriff’s gun range to build his own firearms, including guns without serial numbers commonly referred to as “ghost guns,” according to the application for the search warrant.

The search warrant application came just weeks after this news organization reported that King and other civilians and sheriff staff had been allowed to take ammunition and gun parts from the sheriff’s gun range for years, according to testimony of sheriff officials, including an internal affairs investigator who ultimately recommended the agency halt the practice. The weapons parts taken had been seized in criminal cases or turned over to police by concerned parties with the expectation that they’d be destroyed.

As part of the internal investigation, sheriff’s deputies visited King’s home and looked through the garage and found nothing “overtly illegal,” on retired lieutenant would later testify in a deposition at King’s divorce hearing.

But authorities with the DA reached a different conclusion: they found two assault weapons, extended magazines and a .22 caliber rifle with no serial number, all of which are illegal under California law, a DA inspector wrote in court records.

Asked for comment, sheriff spokesman Jimmy Lee said the sheriff’s office was ready to assist in the probe, if needed.

“Our only statement is that possession of illegal or unregistered firearms is a serious crime and the Sheriff’s Office stands ready to assist our federal and local partners in this investigation or any future prosecution,” Lee said in an email to this newspaper.

The inspector, Larry Wallace, wrote that the gun parts and ammunition were made available to civilians by Dep. Kevin Lee, the technician of the sheriff’s property room. He said they were going off of a tip that “illegal high capacity magazines, assault weapons, ‘ghost guns,’ cash from the profits of gun sales, and property belonging to the Contra Costa Sheriff’s office” were in the residence’s garage.

The search warrant application also said that on Jan. 7, Clayton police seized several magazines from the residence in service of a civil court order involving King’s ongoing divorce, though King denied receiving any of those items from sheriff staff.

King’s attorney declined to comment.

Then-Lt. Kenneth Westermann, who led the internal affairs probe into the sheriff’s office practice of letting civilians take parts from the gun range, said the investigation found no violations of law or sheriff policy. Still, Westermann, who has since retired, believed the practice defied common sense and recommended it be stopped, though he failed to put his findings in writing, he testified.

Legal experts told this newspaper sheriff staff appear to have violated a part of the California penal code that lays out specific steps law enforcement agencies must take with guns or gun parts that have been slated for destruction. While the law allows the use of the items for training or by officers in their official capacity, it does not allow agencies to hand them out to civilians or to officers’ for their personal use.

In an email to this newspaper, Chief Assistant District Attorney Simon O’Connell confirmed the warrant was served in an an investigation “regarding the illegal manufacturing, transportation, possession, and sale of firearms.” No criminal charges have been filed yet, he said.

“The investigation remains ongoing between state and federal law enforcement agencies,” O’Connell said.

King’s work as a sheriff’s volunteer included odd jobs at the range, such as cleaning weapons and escorting inmates to job sites. He also worked on the Sheriff’s Office Posse, a community organization that fundraises for the department, and contributed $1,675 to Sheriff David Livingston’s re-election campaign in 2013. Livingston issued King a permit to carry a concealed weapon, which expired in April 2021, Wallace wrote.

In a deposition in his divorce proceeding King — who made off with thousands of such items — invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination when questioned about the practice, according to court records. He described many of the items as “garbage” and denied being “some kind of guns dealer.” In emails, he asked a sheriff employee to be on the look out for “savage rifles, barrels and bolts,” adding that he and the sheriff’s gun range master, John Mudrock, wanted to build some, but Mudrock testified he couldn’t remember if they ever did so.

Three guns that once belonged to King turned up in a 2015 murder investigation, when King’s brother-in-law, Milo Lloyd Wallace, allegedly murdered his mother and brother in El Dorado County. Authorities there seized 41 guns, including three King allegedly gave or sold to Milo Wallace, but none are the suspected murder weapon.