Residents in Denver’s Fort Logan neighborhood were busy Wednesday putting up Christmas decorations on their property. The 400 block of South Yates Street is a quiet area where shrubs and trees are neatly trimmed and children ride bicycles up and down the block.
But one resident, Stan Ford, was leading a secret life, according to federal authorities. Ford, a Denver firefighter, is accused of selling fully automatic machine guns to FBI informants and harboring ties to a domestic terrorist organization, authorities said.
Ford, 34, was arrested Tuesday at his home without incident after an investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The U.S. attorney’s office wouldn’t comment on the case, other than to say investigators are still working on it.
Federal agents would not discuss the case. Ford’s lawyer, Richard Bryans Jr., said only that Ford is a native of Colorado, a graduate of Regis High School and has never before been in trouble.
Neighbors describe Ford as low-profile. Someone who didn’t raise any concerns.
“You didn’t really see the guy,” said Anton Zayatz. “It was pretty quiet over there.”
Zayatz, however, said he knew something was going on. He knew someone was being watched but didn’t know who.
About a year ago, a person in an unmarked truck with a cherry picker worked on a streetlight. The light seemed to flicker quite a bit after the work was done, Zayatz said.
This summer, a man dressed like an Xcel worker serviced the same light, Zayatz said, and he went to chat with the serviceman.
Hidden inside the street lamp was a camera, Zayatz said. He said the worker removed the equipment.
Now, after Ford’s arrest, Zayatz believes the camera was set up by federal agents to keep an eye on the firefighter. Officials say Ford sold two illegal, fully automatic machine guns to an FBI informant and was arrested trying to sell a third machine gun.
Authorities have been suspicious of Ford since October 2003, when the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office received a tip that he was trying to buy military communications equipment and night-vision goggles from a military post in Colorado Springs.
Local gun shop owners said the guns Ford is accused of selling are readily available as semi-automatics and can easily be modified to fully automatic weapons by purchasing parts either online or through ads in gun magazines.
“It’s drop-in stuff. You don’t have to be Mr. Goodwrench to figure this out,” said Dave Anver, owner of Dave’s Guns. “But this is the quickest ticket I know to 10 years in federal prison. No one in their right mind would be doing this unless you had absolutely no fear of the penitentiary.”
No one answered the door Wednesday at Ford’s split-level home.
A late-model Jeep Grand Cherokee and a black Jaguar sedan were parked in the driveway. The Jaguar had a skull and crossbones license plate attached to the front bumper.
Staff writer Mike McPhee can be reached at 303-820-1409 or mmcphee@denverpost.com.
