Crime & Safety

Hopkins Man Lied in Order to Buy Guns for People in Honduras

Jony Sevilla Cerna pleaded guilty to making false statements during the purchase of a handgun in Minnetonka.

A Hopkins man on Thursday admitted submitting false written statements to local gun dealers, including one in Minnetonka, in order to buy guns for people in Honduras, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota.  

Jony Sevilla Cerna, 34, pleaded guilty in federal court in St. Paul to making a false statement to a federally licensed firearms dealer in order to buy guns. He entered his plea before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Richard Nelson.  

In Cerna’s plea agreement, he admitted that he submitted a false statement while buying a 9-millimeter handgun from a Minnetonka dealer. In that statement, he said he was buying the pistol for himself when he was not.  

He also admitted that he made similar statements while buying 26 other guns that he had purchased on behalf of people in Honduras.  

After buying the guns, he shipped or tried to ship them to Honduras by hiding them in electronic equipment. He traveled to Honduras severall times to distribute the guns and accept payment for them.  

Authorities found seven of the guns  at a freight-forwarding company in Miami and seized them.  

Cerna faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. A sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.  

The case was investigated by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. Assistant U.S. Attorney Surya Saxena is prosecuting the case.  


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