CHANDLER (Arizona) • An ammunition dealer who has acknowledged selling hundreds of rounds of tracer bullets to a gunman responsible for killing 58 people in Las Vegas has been charged with conspiracy to make and sell armour-piercing ammunition without a licence.
Douglas Haig, 55, of the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, Arizona, became the first person arrested and charged in connection with the Oct 1 massacre, which ended when the perpetrator, Stephen Paddock, killed himself. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a US$250,000 (S$330,000) fine.
The court documents do not suggest that Haig knew Paddock was planning a mass shooting.
Haig appeared in court on Friday afternoon and was released on bond. Haig and his attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.
But Haig told a news conference at his attorney's office on Friday that none of the surplus military ammunition he sold Paddock in September was fired during the killing spree, which ranks as the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
Nearly 500 were injured. Haig said he had no inkling of any criminal intent by Paddock. He said Paddock told him he planned to use the bullets to "put on a light show either with, or for, his friends" in the desert.
UNAWARE
I had no way to see into his mind. The product that I sold him had absolutely nothing to do with what he did.
DOUGLAS HAIG, who is accused of selling hundreds of bullets to Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock.
Haig told reporters on Friday at a news conference that he has received death threats in the days since his name was accidentally released in police warrants made public by a Nevada judge on Tuesday.
Haig said he sold ammunition as a hobby for nearly 20 years in addition to working full time as an aerospace engineer. "I had no contribution to what Paddock did," he said. "I had no way to see into his mind. The product that I sold him had absolutely nothing to do with what he did. I'm a vendor. I'm a merchant whose name was released."
Haig said he met Paddock briefly last autumn at a gun show in Phoenix, about a month before the shooting.
Paddock then went to Haig's home in Mesa, Arizona, to buy 720 rounds of tracer ammunition, which leaves behind a trail of light when it is used.
Paddock asked for a box to carry the rounds to his car and Haig gave him a used box that included his name and address. That was their only transaction, he said. The name and address on the box is what led investigators to Haig.
Paddock strafed a crowd of outdoor concert-goers with rapid-fire gunshots from his high-rise suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel before police stormed his room to find the 64-year-old retiree dead. No motive for the massacre has been established.
Haig said he was certain the gunman never used any of the 720 rounds of magnesium-packed tracer bullets Paddock had purchased from him.
"You would have seen red streaks coming from the window. And there weren't red streaks coming from the window," he said.
But prosecutors said Haig's fingerprints were found on some of the unfired rounds in Paddock's hotel suite and that armour-piercing cartridges recovered there bore tool marks matching the reloading equipment in Haig's workshop.
Haig did not have the licence needed to manufacture such ammunition, according to the charges filed.
REUTERS, NYTIMES, WASHINGTON POST
