SEATTLE (AP) – Prosecutors told jurors Tuesday that the father of the teenager who shot and killed four classmates and himself repeatedly lied on forms to illegally buy firearms. But the father’s lawyer countered the man underwent multiple background checks and was never told he was barred from having guns.
Raymond Fryberg is charged with illegally owning the handgun his son, Jaylen, used last year in the Marysville-Pilchuck High School shootings. Prosecutors say Fryberg was the subject of a 2002 domestic-violence protection order, making it illegal for him to have that handgun and the nine rifles found in his possession.
During opening statements, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake told the jury Fryberg pleaded no contest in 2012 to violating that protection order. Fryberg bought the guns by answering “no” to a question on a firearms form about whether he was the subject of such an order.
He was caught only after FBI agents tried to find the Berretta’s owner and traced it back to him, Miyake said.
The prosecutor didn’t tell jurors that the FBI was investigating the gun used in the school shooting because U.S. District Judge James Robart has prohibited any mention of that tragedy during Fryberg’s trial. Robart made that decision because Fryberg is not charged with what happened at the school.