Man arrested for illegal purchase of gun
BERNE An arrest for a domestic dispute in February led to the arrest this week of a 42-year-old man after, police say, he attempted to illegally purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer in town.
Jeffrey J. Longendyke, of 480 Joslyn School Rd., tried to buy a .762 Russian Mosin Nagant rifle on May 24 from Helderberg Mountain Lures in Berne.
He is being charged with one count of first-degree falsifying business records, a felony, and criminal purchase of a weapon, a misdemeanor.
Longendyke had been arrested on Feb. 8 by the Guilderland Police on a complaint of domestic violence.
The violence started at his Joslyn Road home and escalated after his wife went with their children to a friends home in Guilderland, the arrest report says. There, Longendyke took a wooden walking stick and used it break out the windows of his wifes car as well as breaking a storm window at the house, according to his arrest report.
After he was arrested for third-degree criminal mischief, Guilderland Judge Denise Randall arraigned him and issued an order of protection.
The order also called for Longendyke to surrender his four firearms to the Albany County Sheriffs Department and prohibit him from buying new ones.
The department still has Longendykes four guns, according to Senior Investigator Ron Bates of the sheriffs department.
"This is what disqualified him immediately from purchasing a firearm," Bates told The Enterprise yesterday. "In his order of protection, he could not have them."
Bates said the sheriff’s department was notified by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System after Longendyke signed and offered an Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms "over the counter" firearms transfer application.
The law requires anyone who is buying a firearm to fill out an application and it subjects the would-be buyer to a criminal background check, Bates said.
The Russian Mosin Nagant rifle is a "bolt-action rifle" used for hunting and not an assault rifle, according to the sheriff’s department.
Longendyke answered "no" on his application to the specific question of whether there were any current court orders restraining him from "harassing, stalking, or threatening a child or intimate partner," said Bates. The owner of Helderberg Mountain Lures submitted the application to NICS, as required, and it was reported as "delayed" so the owner told Longendyke he would have to come back for the rifle, Bates said.
Four days later, Bates said, the NICS as well as the gun shop owner called the sheriff’s department which led to Longendyke’s arrest. The gun shop sells "sporting goods and firearms" from an area attached to the owner’s house.
Albany County Sheriffs deputies arrested Longendyke at his Joslyn School Road home and he was arraigned in Berne Town Court by Judge Kenneth Bunzey and released on $5,000 bail.