Gun seller pleads guilty to charge related to Newtown

Lee Higgins | The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The man who sold the Bushmaster rifle used in the Newtown, Conn., massacre has pleaded guilty to a federal charge stemming from the gun sale.

Krystopher Dibella, an former employee at Riverview Gun Sales in East Windsor, Conn., pleaded guilty Monday in federal court here to aiding and abetting a failure to make a proper entry on an ATF 4473 form, which is a firearms transaction form. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raided the gun store days after the massacre.

The misdemeanor offense occurred March 15, 2010, the same date Nancy Lanza began her purchase of the rifle, the court clerk's office said. Her son, Adam Lanza, used the semiautomatic Bushmaster .223 to kill 26 people, 20 of them schoolchildren, in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School about 65 miles away.

The Journal News previously obtained copies of the ATF 4473s, the firearms transactions forms that Nancy Lanza filled out and signed, showing she bought the Bushmaster XM15 rifle from Dibella on March 29, 2010, and a SIG Sauer 9 mm pistol on March 16, 2011, at the same store. Both guns were found at the scene of the massacre.

The Journal News first reported in April that the ATF in the days after its raid had revoked the federal firearms license of the store's owner, David LaGuercia, citing a history of violations.

Among the "willful violations" found from January 2010 to July 2011 was that Dibella "sold ammunition on at least two occasions" to a man "he had reason to believe was a felon."

So far, LaGuercia has not been charged. Dibella is scheduled to be sentenced at 11 a.m. Sept. 16.

Neither Dibella nor his lawyer, Lawrence Church, could be reached immediately for comment Tuesday.