“A Wheat Ridge gun dealer who became a Discovery Channel reality TV star was sentenced to 78 months in prison for failing to report $1.1 million in income to the IRS, conspiracy and dealing firearms without a license,” denverpost.com reports. “Richard Wyatt, 54, was found guilty last year in U.S. District Court on 10 felony counts.” His lawyer asked for less jail time using an unconventional argument . . .

Wyatt’s attorney Brian Leedy argued for a 2½-year sentence for his client. As an example of why Wyatt’s sentence should be less than what the U.S. attorneys sought, Leedy said Wyatt’s loss of ability to exercise the Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms, due to his felony convictions was a punishment “as severe as could be imagined aside from incarceration.”

During a statement Wyatt made to the court, he talked about writing an essay in the eighth grade about wanting to open a gun shop.

Speaking of kids . . .

https://youtu.be/Pudfk4t4wo4

Wyatt asked [Judge] Krieger to consider his children — who he said have been beaten up and forced to change their name because of his actions — when delivering his sentence.

“They’re not pawns in your life,” Krieger responded.

If Wyatt’s stepdaughter Paige Grewcock’s [now moribund] career is any indication, they sure weren’t unwilling pawns. Anyway . . .

Mr. Wyatt was convicted of selling guns after the ATF yanked his FFL. According to court records, two undercover ATF agents purchased four guns from Wyatt on three occasions. None of the firearm have been traced to crimes (including Uncle Sam’s).

As stated above, Mr. Wyatt’s lost his natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Forever. Fair enough?

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57 COMMENTS

  2. Somehow the left will make this reflect on the rest of us. This guy had a good thing going and managed to screw it up, amazing.

    • oh the injustice, FBI agents, presidential candidate, hi-level DOJ conspire to spy illegally on an American citizen running for President, then accuse that candidate of their own crimes and non of them are facing jail time.

  4. “Mr. Wyatt was convicted of selling guns after the ATF yanked his FFL. According to court records, two undercover ATF agents purchased four guns from Wyatt on three occasions. None of the firearm have been traced to crimes (including Uncle Sam’s).”

    We all know ATF Agents are Always honest and trustworthy and NEEEEEEVER Coerce or Entrap anyone(sarc) ( Waco/Ruby Ridge)

    also, Pay your damn Taxes, The rest of us Do; You’re not special numbnuts!

    • I was in his shop ONCE. And then I read the Yelp reviews to confirm my impression. Richard Wyatt deserves at least 20 years for theft. He’s a dirtbag, a liar, a fraud, a thief, and an arrogant asshole.

  5. Wasn’t there another show about custom made guns on TV where the father was accused of molesting his daughter?

    • I believe hayden has already been convicted of molesting his daughter and 1 or 2 others and will be in a Lousiana prison for life. Probably angola which is a horrible place.

    • He’s doing his time at FCI Englewood in Liitleton, CO. I’m sure he’d appreciate some mail😃

  8. Damn. It almost seems like Discovery went out of their way to find “Gun guys” who could later be taken down hard and publicly for despicable crimes.

    A conspiracy theory could be built out of less than this.

  9. What’s with the s##teating grin on his mug shot?!? Hollyweird…oh I don’t think young Paige was a blood relative. Just a casualty. Oh well…

  10. There is a presumed “societal value” to preventing convicted felons from legally purchasing firearms. I’m not sure what the best way to deal with this is, as firearms are so easily acquired even if it is illegal for someone to purchase one.

    My problem is that the right to keep and bear arms is an enumerated right in the US Constitution. Felons lose the second amendment and the right to vote. I get the point, but is it right? I frankly don’t know. But I am damn queasy about stripping a natural right to self defense from any human.

    Commit a felony, get tried or plead guilty, and (maybe) go to jail. Lose your right effectively forever to armed self defense. OK, if you committed an armed assault, or worse violent crime, you have proven you are a danger. So we as a society seek to prevent you from causing further harm.

    Isn’t that punishing someone because they *might* offend again? Make no mistake, I am not soft on crime. I think punishments for violent offenses are too lenient in almost all cases. What if someone commits bank fraud? Yeah, I think they are a scumbag. Should they then lose their right to armed self defense for all time? Their crime did not involve a firearm, so we try to keep them from using one in the future?

    Deeply conflicted on this as a principle, even though I’m happy that smiling, cheesy-ass-scumbag is off to the pen, as I am when anyone who craps in the communal drinking pool go off to jail.

    • If someone is not in lawful, legitimate custody of another, shall not be infringed applies. If someone is disarmed by another, government in this case disarming him, then government is responsible for his reasonable safety. That is the duty of a guardian; a position in which government has placed itself.

      When government strips someone of their ability to protect their life and property without placing a guardian to reasonably protect the person; how is that moral? It isn’t.

      • Good points that I’ve never thought of! The guardianship thing in terms of security personal safety… Hmm… Dammit, now you’ve got me thinking and I’ve got shit to do…

      • Government didn’t strip him of anything. He did this to himself. Government owes him squat, save three hots and a cot for a few decades. F him.

        When, if, he gets out, he can live life disarmed, which by the way, is how millions of people do every day. He’s already demonstrated that he lacks the judgment to handle that much responsibility.

        In the future, he can work as a Wal-Mart greeter, taking the bus to work, and maybe carry a little pocket knife. That’s his second chance and that’s about as good as it gets.

        • Nope. A backdoor life sentence is wrong on every level. If a jail term and probation are not rational punishment for the crime, then the sentencing needs to be adjusted. Punishing a person forever is a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

          Doesn’t matter if the entire population of the nation goes about unarmed, the constitution does not provide for indefinite suspension of anyone’s rights beyond the sentence of the court. Legislation to make punishment permanent is a gross violation of human rights.

          Now, you have the “right” to opine that a felon deserves permanent punishment, but such an opinion means you are quite comfortable punishing forever those people you find deplorable. But your opinion does not make you right, merely a “sunshine constitutionalist, fair weather conservative, and sometimes morality king. Depending on your prejudices of the day.

        • “Government didn’t strip him of anything. He did this to himself. Government owes him squat, save three hots and a cot for a few decades. F him.”

          Bullshit. If government isn’t stripping him of the exercise of his unalienable individual right to keep and bear arms then why won’t he be able to legally purchase and carry a firearm after he is out? Did he write the law… Nope, government did. The same government that is supposedly restrained by “shall not be infringed.”

          By all means, support gun control if you want just don’t expect me to. I respect individual rights.

  11. Who couldn’t be charged with tax evasion? Seriously, the laws are so huge that everyone here could get charged, and I bet a jury would love to convict a “dangerous” pro-gun guy like me. We pay a CPA / tax guy to do ours, and are as honest as possible. Meanwhile, business owners and political elites, with the right donations and write offs, pay an effective tax rate of about 14%. Think Hillary and Obama are paying their taxes a the same right we silly peons are? Big government loves big laws because they can take down whoever they want.

    Granted, I don’t know his level of carelessness or exactly how and why he got caught. Clearly the right hands weren’t greased. Also, anyone who is pro-gun also is a constant target for the Left. Want the left to like you? Just hate guns and hired armed guards. That’s completely acceptable.

    As to dealing without a license, I really don’t care. I thought that was what 2nd Amendment absolutism was all about. Maybe I’m missing something here, but the Left continues to celebrate their anti-gun victories while we bicker semantics.

    • Small business owner here. Tell me where the tax “write offs” are, the ones that get me down to 14%. None of my buddies with similar small businesses know what these write offs are either. Help them out too.

      Thanks!

  12. If felons really weren’t allowed to purchase firearms, no one would have firearms. It’s all about who gets convicted. Convictions happen when:
    1) someone does something conspicuously criminal such as murder.
    2) someone is a political or personal opponent of some party with money or influence, and the conviction is deemed a worthwhile investment.

    Never mind the non-violent aspect of this man’s actions; he was famous, had guns, made news, and was an easy target. Hopefully the unpaid taxes went towards something more productive than most state programs, such as civilian owned firearms, though the taxes will probably end up being collected anyway.

  13. Wyatt also is an ex-cop. His “daughter,” Paige, is actually his step-daughter. And her last name isn’t Wyatt. It’s — you can’t make this stuff up — Grewc0ck. Seriously.

  14. More laws to screw with the 2a, no one should need any license to sell a gun, a car, or a refrigerator. a license is a permission slip from the government. Tax evasion, more crap, you don’t own anything, it’s just renting from the government. Your car, house whatever it’s unfair taxation, your taxed when your paid, then your taxed when you buy, taxed on what you own and taxed on what you sell. Isn’t this one reason America went to war with England? Unfair taxation? …. On the bright side when the dude gets out of prison he will be 60 then in ten more years he can apply for expungment and have guns again, if a judge so decrees. America land of the free, your free to do whatever “they” tell you you can do.

  15. GOOD! This POS and far to many others of the same ilk, makes the firearms community look, BAD. As far as his “daughter”, just another victim trapped in his web of greed.

  16. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again.

    If you walk into a gunsmith’s shop and there’s drama and theatrics worthy of a “reality” TV show, walk out.

    I’ll now add this: If you walk into a gunsmith’s shop and see highly done-up, attractive women – you should also probably walk out. There’s nothing about this business that is glamorous, and there’s even less that’s so profitable as to keep “hot” women in shoes and handbags – so my first question would be “where’s the actual money coming from?”

    • Yes, spot on. You could say the same thing for 90% of businesses you might deal with.

      I’m looking for care, competence, and character.

  17. ‘ Render onto Caesar what air Caesars.’

    Or go to prison. Your choice.

  18. “Deeply conflicted on this as a principle”

    Agree.

    For years, I had no interest in, or concern for, “felons” who forfeited their gun and voting rights; once a bad guy, always a bad guy. Then I took up an interest in shooting sports and guns in general. After reading this and other blogs on second amendment issues, I became “conflicted”, also. One of the things that got my attention was/is the number of societal infractions that moved from misdemeanor to felony status. My impression now is that for today everything other than traffic tickets are felonies, with traffic tickets probably on the bubble to be upgraded.

    Setting aside the lowering of the bar for committing felonies, we have two levels of felony: violent and non-violent. Yet the permanent impairment/suspension/denial/removal of constitutional rights is the same in both instances. Considering that lifetime loss of certain constitutional rights is a continuing punishment, felony convictions result in life sentences. Is this what a civilized culture does to its citizens?

    So, today, I have firmly moved into the camp that declares, “If a person is too dangerous to have a gun, they are too dangerous to release onto the public”. Having said that, I still have some thinking that violent felons should be sentenced for life (meaning permanent removal of gun and voting rights; although removing gun rights does nothing to prevent a convicted felon from buying a gun). In the end, this crap of permanently punishing a person whose “debt to society” is supposed to be paid upon release from prison (and parole) is offensive to the idea of a constitutionally restrained government.

  19. So . . he’s a dirtbag and if you’re making $1.1 million for f**ks sake just report it on your taxes.

    But nothing he was accused of is a violent crime and no, he should not lose his guns rights because of that.

  20. Florida just declared possession of bump stocks to be a felony
    If you keep the property that you legally required after October 2018, you can be convicted of a felony lose your gun rights forever

    • That part of the new law will be tossed quickly. It violates the FL Constitution as well as the US Constitution. Same for the 21 to buy a gun. This law will never go into effect. And Rick Scott and the Rino’s who voted for it are finished.

  21. Paige wyatt grew up paige grewcock in a small CT town called beacon falls located right outside Waterbury, CT in the Naugatuck River Valley. Her brother Kurt graduated Woodland High School in Beacon Falls in the late 2000’s. They also have another brother, Mike, who still lives in the beacon falls area in CT today.

    The only guns Paige and Kurt “grew up around” were paintball guns that Kurt and his friends would play around with in the woods.

    Now they are a subject of an article on TTAG and being judged and ridiculed from every corner of the “interwebs”

    Its sick to see people who were just normal, everyday people give up their souls and true identities for the lust of fame & fortune

    It should be a lessen to everyone out there- when u sell your soul to the devil, there are no refunds

    • Except that both kids signed up for the fame and fortune money train, so they’re not exactly guiltless.

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