The wife of a Pennsylvania firearms dealer convicted of illegally buying 71 machine-guns can’t have a federal license to keep the family business going, a U.S. appeals court panel ruled Tuesday.

That decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit likely will put Warminster-based Armament Services International Inc. out of operation.

The firm’s president, Vahan Kelerchian, was convicted by a federal jury more than three years ago of conspiring with corrupt members of a police force in the state of Indiana to illegally acquire the machine-guns, Judge Michael A. Chagares noted in the appeals court’s opinion.

Chagares noted the conspirators lied when they reported those automatic weapons were being purchased for law enforcement purposes. Instead, the machine-guns were dismantled and sold for parts, investigators said.

The case before Chagares’ court involved an attempt by Kelerchian’s wife Maura to secure a federal firearms dealer license to keep ASI in business. She appealed to the 3rd Circuit after U.S. Eastern District Judge Michael M. Baylson upheld a decision by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to deny that license application. The ATF found Maura Kelerchian was ineligible for the license because she had “aided and abetted” the machine-gun scam.

Chagares rejected Maura Kelerchian’s claims on appeal that she had no involvement in that crime. He noted she was vice president of ASI and “it is beyond dispute that ASI knew of Vahan’s actions and is thus, under the licensing regime, responsible for his conduct.”

It was Maura Klerchian who sent the law enforcement conspirators the forms for the falsified letters they needed to provide to make the machine-gun purchases pass federal muster, Chagares wrote. He noted she also sent them directions on how to dismantle the weapons so the parts could be sold.

“It is plain that ASI willfully violated the Gun Control Act and Maura aided and abetted those violations,” the appeals judge wrote.