A federal inmate released from a Louisiana prison last week is back behind bars after prosecutors in New York say police caught him running a black market gun trade through a phone smuggled into his cell.
Hayden Espinosa, 24, allegedly moderated a Telegram group named “3D Amendment,” a hub for 3D printing and trading guns and gun modifications, including auto sears, which authorities described as “illegal machine gun conversion devices.”
Auto sears are considered machine guns under federal law, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Court records show Espinosa was convicted of federal guns charges for 3D printing and selling similar devices through the mail in Texas in 2021.
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A still image taken from video posted to a YouTube channel linked to the suspect shows a man firing what appears to be a fully automatic weapon.(YouTube/3D Amendment)
A year later, investigators looking into a mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo discovered Espinosa once again, authorities said at a news briefing in Manhattan Tuesday morning.
A screenshot showing items listed for sale on the 3D Amendment Telegram group, according to federal investigators.(Manhattan District Attorney’s Office)
The suspect in the Tops Friendly Market massacre, Payton Gendron, was a member of the 3D Amendment Telegram group, authorities said. He was sentenced to life in prison last year after pleading guilty to domestic terrorism and hate crime charges for shooting 10 Black people and wounding three others in a meticulously plotted shooting spree that he livestreamed.
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Payton Gendron, then 18, of Conklin, N.Y., is taken into custody after a mass shooting in Buffalo killed 10 and wounded three more. The NYPD discovered Gendron was a member of Espinosa’s Telegram group.(Reuters)
After Espinosa’s release from prison June 4, Louisiana deputies immediately arrested him in the new case, authorities said.
Homeland Security Investigations New York Special Agent in Charge Ivan Arvelo said during the briefing that Espinosa’s Telegram group was a “clandestine chatgroup” that promoted neo-Nazi and anti-government ideology in addition to selling guns, gun parts and magazines.
Screenshots of an alleged “menu” list a single auto sear for an AR-15 rifle for $50 with a bulk discount of $500 for 20.
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Espinosa is accused of selling guns and gun modifications online while behind bars. (Manhattan District Attorney’s Office)
Videos on Instagram and YouTube under 3D Amendment-related accounts include montages of people firing what appear to be automatic pistols and rifles.
“There’s no telling the bloodshed these weapons could have caused if placed in the wrong hands,” Arvelo said.
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While behind bars, Espinosa allegedly sold a gun, silencers and auto sears to an undercover NYPD officer who was monitoring the Telegram group, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged at a news briefing Tuesday morning.
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He allegedly shipped the items through the U.S. Postal Service. Photos posted on the 3D Amendment Instagram page show packed and labeled parcels.
Espinosa is due back in court June 24 for an arraignment on four counts of transporting a firearm, machine gun, silencer or disguised gun and one count of attempted criminal sale of a firearm in the third degree.
The Parkway East’s Commercial Street Bridge is about to blow – but it’s not happening on Wednesday night.
PennDOT say they were going to bring down the bridge sometime between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, but around 8 p.m officials and security said the explosion was postponed.
The demolition will be shown live on PennDOT’s project page or 511 PA, which also has cameras placed along the project’s detour routes.
Watch the live stream here:
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A crowd of about 100 people gathered Wednesday evening at the Summerset at Frick Park residential development for a front-row view of the bridge demolition.
The atmosphere felt more like a neighborhood block party than a construction event. Families brought their children and pets, while groups of friends arrived carrying pizzas and coolers of beer. Lawn chairs lined the hillside as people in shorts and sunglasses settled in to wait for the explosion. Some spectators wore earplugs in anticipation of the blast.
A man with a ukulele strummed some folk tunes to liven the expectant atmosphere as police wrapped red caution tape around the edge of the hill, denoting the 800-foot security perimeter around the bridge.
Merav Amos, from Squirrel Hill, brought her family for a picnic, complete with books, lawn chairs and glasses of wine.
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Amos said she planned the trip when PennDOT released its expected demolition window, but realized then and there that there was one thing she had forgotten.
“I actually hope it’s not going to be too loud, because we don’t have earplugs,” she said.
Amos lives near the Parkway East’s local detour route, and has had to deal with traffic increasing near her home since the bridge closed on Friday. She hoped watching the demolition live would provide a satisfying payoff.
“The last few days were very rough,” she said. “I want to see some action.”
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Jim Christy, of Robinson, parked in the South Side and made the journey over on his bike to watch the explosion.
Christy frequently bikes through the Frick Park trails — some of which were restricted on Wednesday ahead of the demolition.
(WFSB) – The Connecticut Technical Education and Career System is under investigation by the United States Department of Education.
In a letter sent to the superintendent obtained by Channel 3, the nature of the investigation centers around the district’s handling of rape and/or sexual assault cases by school staff.
“Due to the District’s inaccurate responses to the rape and/or sexual assault data elements involving allegations against school staff of OCR’s 2023–24 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), the directed investigation will examine whether the District has policies and procedures in place to ensure accurate data collection and reporting and that its handling of the sexual harassment, including sexual assault, of students by District teachers, administrators, and/or staff members is consistent with the requirements of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and its implementing regulation,” said the letter in part.
Read it in full below:
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The school system issued a statement in response to the investigation.
A poster of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, the man killed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is displayed at a memorial in Biddeford, Maine.Robert F. Bukaty/AP
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The day after hundreds of locals poured into the streets of Biddeford, Maine in protest of ICE’s killing of 26-year-old Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero on Monday, I drove through the former mill town. It seemed eerily still, as if in shock. When the horrors of Minneapolis and Houston come to your small corner of New England, what can you do?
In Mechanics Park in Biddeford, a small but diligent group presented one answer: you keep showing up.
“When I woke up this morning, I knew that this was the place I should go right to,” said Wayne Miller, 71, a retired pilot of 35 years and resident of Beverly, Massachusetts. “This is my backyard. This is my neighborhood.”
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He paused, then started to cry. “I’m ashamed of my country. I love the country. I’m ashamed.”
Miller was standing with a sign that read “Dissent while you still can” at the corner of Mechanics Park in Biddeford, where the protest and vigil for Guerrero had been held the day before. A nearby chain-link fence served as a memorial, lined with flowers, signs, and letters of grief and apology for Guerrero and his family. One read, “3-year-olds should be watching Bluey, not their fathers being executed.” Above a “No Trespassing” sign, someone had placed another: “Biddeford was built by immigrants.”
I spoke with Miller and others who had come out on Tuesday to continue expressing their grief for their neighbor, the second person killed by federal agents in less than a week.
“It’s one thing to see a news story from a distance,” said Tessa, 28, a waitress and resident of Biddeford. “But watching it happen close to home, it really recontextualizes the safety that you feel walking around in your neighborhood.”
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For Linda Henry, 27, a retired firefighter and Gloucester, Massachusetts resident, it was only a matter of time. “I know that it doesn’t matter where you live. It’s going to happen, you know. ICE is going to come.”
“I’m ashamed of my country. I love the country. I’m ashamed.”
Guerrero was a Colombian citizen who lived in Biddeford, Maine with his partner and 3-year-old daughter. He is one of at least nine people killed by federal immigration agents since the start of Donald Trump’s second term. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claims Guerrero “weaponized” his vehicle during a traffic stop. But similar claims by DHS have quickly fallen apart after video footage of shootings has come to light.
Reports say that not only was Guerrero authorized to legally work in the US, but he wasn’t the target of ICE’s operations that day.
Katie, a 48-year-old educator from New Hampshire, shared her anger. “A gun is not a license to kill. These agents have no business drawing their guns,” she said. “They aren’t judge, jury, and executioner, and they don’t have the right to be killing people the way that they are.”
“We were taught from the time we were little, ‘liberty and justice for all.’ We were taught that the United States was a place for everyone, and the current regime has changed that,” Katie continued.
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A sign at a makeshift memorial for Guerrero at Mechanics Park in Biddeford, Maine.
Most of the protesters were standing with signs on the sidewalk along the adjacent intersection, shouting “ICE OUT” while passing cars honked. Near the memorial, a man on a bike caught my eye. He was off to the side, alone, quietly reading the letters addressed to Guerrero.
He introduced himself as Diego, 30, a restaurant worker and Biddeford resident. “I knew the guy. He was always around,” he said. “I was working and I was about to cry, to be honest. Because it’s injustice, you know? I’m an immigrant, and this country was built for immigrants.”
“We work, we pay taxes. We also need rights, as everybody does,” he said. “It’s not about left or right. It’s not about a political party. It’s about human rights.”
He told me that while he’s never felt disrespected by his neighbors and the people of Biddeford are good, the government is not the same. He said he feels unsafe and his community of immigrants feels like it’s hiding.
“How many need to die for us to understand?” Diego said. “He’d got a kid, a little daughter. And that’s the most devastating. Because, you know, if I do something wrong, I can say ‘I’m sorry, I apologize.’ But he’s dead. There’s no apology that can bring him back, you know? He’s dead. I can’t even believe it, I can’t even believe this is happening.”
Letters, flowers, and signs lined the fence at Mechanics Park.
When I asked Diego why he had stopped on his bike, he said out of solidarity—for Guerrero, for his partner and daughter. And when I asked what he would say to his community, he said, “Thank you for all the solidarity of people. Thank you for all the understanding. And I hope we can stop the violence.”