A former Miami Beach police officer pleaded guilty Friday to selling firearms without a license in one of the largest firearms seizures from one person in the Southern District of Florida, federal prosecutors said.
Jose Antonio Quintana, 55, of Virginia Gardens, faces up to five years in prison at sentencing, scheduled for Jan. 18. He's also agreed to pay $10,000 to the ATF for investigative costs and will forfeit a large cache of seized weapons that includes 96 rifles, 79 shotguns, 418 handguns and approximately 25,889 rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.
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According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Quintana attended numerous gun shows across Florida between Nov. 2008 and July 2012, where he sold firearms as purported "private sales."
That allowed Quintana to operate as a cash business without a storefront, without reporting his activity to the ATF or completing ATF paperwork and without conducting background checks on customers, prosecutors said.
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During that time, undercover ATF agents bought 11 firearms worth $6,115 from Quintana at various gun shows. During one of the purchases, "Quintana claimed that the law allowed him to privately sell a reasonable unspecified quantity of firearms," prosecutors said.
The Miami, Miami-Dade and Miami Beach police departments assisted in the case.
