Michael V. Zaremski was at the police station to answer questions about a harassment complaint. While speaking with police, officers allegedly found a loaded 9mm handgun in his jacket pocket, the jacket that identified him as a Hackettstown EMT. The 25-year-old, police said, had made the weapon himself.

When officers and state troopers searched his Sussex County home early Tuesday morning, they allegedly uncovered a homemade arsenal – several handguns, long guns, semi-automatics and high-capacity magazines that police described as “loaded and ready to use.”

Zaremski, of Green Township, is being held without bail in the Sussex County jail pending hearings on the slew of weapons offenses he now faces.

A relative declined to comment when reached by phone at Zaremski’s home early Tuesday afternoon. The news came as a shock to Christopher Biamonte, president of Hackettstown First Aid & Rescue Squad, where he confirmed Zaremski worked on the paid staff during the day shift for at least the last few months.

Zaremski also appears to be an officer with Allamuchy-Green First Aid Squad, which serves an area adjacent to Hackettstown and spanning the border of Sussex and Warren counties.

“My goodness, that’s terrible,” Biamonte said around midday Tuesday. But, he added, Zaremski never seemed to show any signs of trouble, nothing that would have showed up on the squad’s background checks.

Michael Zaremski is an EMT for the Hackettstown First Aid & Rescue Squad, where news of his arrest came as a shock.Rich Maxwell | Lehighvalleylive.com contributor

A woman in the Sussex County borough of Franklin, some 20 miles northeast of Hackettstown and Green Township, had gone to police there to complain that Zaremski was harassing her. The two had broken up in April, and he got her fired from her job by posting images of her wearing a Nazi SS uniform to a fake Instagram account and following her employer and colleagues, according to a New Jersey Herald report citing an affidavit.

Zaremski, wearing his Hackettstown EMS jacket, went to the Franklin Borough police station to answer questions. That’s when the handgun was found in his pocket, a bullet in the chamber, the news release said.

Police said the weapon had no serial numbers, that Zaremski had manufactured it himself and was not authorized to carry it.

That led to the warrant and Tuesday’s early morning search. Among the weapons seized, according to police, were several assault rifles Zaremski had made, and more than 15 high-capacity magazines.

(The Franklin Borough police news release defined “high-capacity magazines” as “a firearm magazine capable of holding more than the standard number of rounds provided by the designer.”)

Zaremski faces more than 30 criminal charges including the manufacture and possession of semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, cyber harassment and minor drug charges.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveNovakLVL and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.