American Guns TV star Richard Wyatt, 54, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison on Thursday
A Discovery Channel star and gun shop owner was sentenced to 78 months behind bars for dealing firearms without a license, and failing to report over a million dollars to the IRS.
Richard Wyatt, 54, rose to fame on the Discovery Channel series ‘American Guns’ which focused on his shop Gunsmoke Guns in Wheatridge, Colorado.
Wyatt relinquished his federal firearms license back in 2012 but continued to hustle arms secretly in conjunction with other gun businesses and he failed to report $1.1million of income to the IRS.
Despite not having a firearms license, the former TV-star conspired with nearby gun store owners to operate under a straw license.
Wyatt would have customers buy a gun at Gunsmoke Guns then head to other stores for criminal background checks and to pick up their weapons, according to the Denver Post.
TV star: Wyatt’s show American Guns aired from 2011 to 2012 in his shop Gunsmoke Guns where he illegally sold guns despite relinquishing his license to do so in 2012
His show focused on Wyatt (right) and his wife (second right) and children (both left). He was caught in illegal arms deals by undercover agents and found guilty of 10 felony counts last year and now faces six and a half years in prison
His operation was foiled when two undercover agents purchased four guns from his on three occasions, while wearing body cameras, according to court records.
In March 2015, ATF agents seized 583 guns and ammunition from his shop.
He was sentenced to six and a half years in prison on Thursday after after U.S. District Court found him guilty on 10 felony counts last year, for not only his failure to report over a million in income, but conspiracy and dealing firearms without a license as well.
Wyatt’s attorney Brian Leedy argued for a 2.5 year sentence instead saying that his loss of ability to exercise the Second Amendment, is punishment enough and is ‘as severe as could be imagined aside from incarceration’.
‘Guns have been my entire life. I’ll never be able to touch one again … I’ve got to start over completely,’ Wyatt said.
‘But I got in a little bit over my head,’ Wyatt said on the TV fame.
His TV screen career lasted from 2011 to 2012 over 26-episodes centered on his gun shop, and family of wife and two children. He was paid $500,000 for the Discovery Channel stint.
The show centered on his shop (above) in Wheatridge, Colorado where he illegally sold arms for years and failed to report $1.1million in income to the IRS
‘The pressure of it. The places I got to go and the people I got to meet … I drank the Kool-Aid and I thought I was special,’ he added.
Chief Judge Marcia Krieger asked Wyatt to point out what exactly he felt he did wrong to which Wyatt answered ‘I didn’t do the paperwork. I didn’t pay my fair share.’
Krieger used this answer against him saying Wyatt did not understand the severity of his crimes of illegally selling arms. She stayed firm on the six-year sentence.
She said Wyatt appeared remorseful over the consequences of jail time and not for his actions.
Wyatt’s attorney tried to raise the TV personality’s former law enforcement stint as evidence of good character. But Krieger found this to make his disregard for the law all the more abhorrent.
She said, he had ‘elements of fraud, greed and arrogance that says, “I’m above the law.”‘
‘Mr. Wyatt. You are not,’ she added.