Half of the charges against a Ross man accused of gun trafficking were thrown out at his preliminary hearing Wednesday, April 8.
However, Benjamin Ford, 43, was held for trial on the remaining three charges and will stay in the Allegheny County Jail without bond after West View District Judge Richard Opiela said he was unable to consider a defense request to change it.
At the end of a more than two-hour hearing, Opiela granted defense attorney Phil DiLucente’s request to dismiss three of the six felony counts of selling or transferring firearms to persons not permitted to possess them on jurisdictional grounds.
Those charges had involved two guns Ford bought that police recovered in New Jersey and one that police found in Manhattan. Opiela said there was no evidence that the transfers of those three guns had happened in Allegheny County or Pennsylvania.
The three counts for which Ford was held for trial are for guns that records show Ford bought and police recovered from people not allowed to possess firearms in Allegheny County.
Those six handguns, plus two for which there are records of Ford selling or transferring them, are the only ones located out of 205 that the state Attorney General says Ford legally bought in Pennsylvania between 2013 and 2024. No guns were found when Ford’s Lincoln Avenue home in Ross was searched, according to testimony.
While Ford claimed during the search that one of his guns found in Swissvale had been stolen during a break-in of his home, there are no records showing Ford ever reported any break-ins or thefts, testified Harry Clarke, a special agent with the Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations assigned to the Allegheny County Gun Violence Task Force. And except for two guns, there were no records of Ford legally selling or transferring them.
One 9 mm round and seven 50-caliber rounds for a rifle were found in Ford’s home, Clarke said. Police also took five USB flash drives, CD-ROMs, three or four laptops and a couple of tablet computers, which Clarke testified are being analyzed.
Authorities also found a Dremel tool and some worn bits in Ford’s garage. Authorities say the serial numbers on the six guns police recovered had been obliterated but were able to be restored.
Clarke testified there was no evidence that Ford had used the Dremel to remove the serial numbers and that it was not known when Ford had bought it. The tool was still being analyzed.
DiLucente had asked for all of the charges against Ford to be dismissed, arguing there was no evidence tying him to an illegal sale or transfer.
“For today’s purposes, you come in with six felonies and you leave with three, it’s an honest day’s work,” he said.
DiLucente said he made the point throughout his cross-examination that it is not illegal to own 205 guns, and he is not challenging that Ford bought them.
“You do not have to report to anyone if you destroy a gun that is registered to you. You also have an exception where if it is transferred to an immediate family member, you do not need any federal license transfer forms,” he said.
Asked whether Ford has said he had given any of the guns to family or destroyed them, DiLucente said, “He has not said anything.”
DiLucente said he could not get into the details of how the six guns got to where they were found or where the others are.
“I know lots of older women who have little trinkets and little toys, ceramics that they put up. If somebody has 200 or 300 of something, they don’t take an inventory every day,” he said. “Quite frankly, who knows how the heck those guns ended up where they ended up.”
In arguing for Ford to be given bail, DiLucente noted Ford works for U.S. Steel as a chemist and plant manager, is an honorably discharged Army veteran, married with three children, a Ross resident for more than a decade and has no prior convictions. He argued that Ford is not a flight risk or a threat to the community.
Prosecutors argued Ford should continue to be held in jail, saying he is a danger and a flight risk because of the serious charges he faces and because he has ties to other states. They also noted the nearly 200 handguns that are unaccounted for.
While Opiela said Ford could be a candidate for being released with an ankle monitor, he said he didn’t have enough information to make that decision because he did not have a pretrial report on Ford.
DiLucente said Ford is holding up well and intends to continue to fight the charges.
“He believes that he has done nothing wrong, and, hopefully, we’ll be able to prove that in a different court,” he said.