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Speaker 1: Col Zone Media. On April twenty first, nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: The phone rang at the Portland, Oregon field office of

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Speaker 1: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The caller wouldn't

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Speaker 1: give his name, but he had something he had to

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Speaker 1: get off his chest. He said he was a private

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Speaker 1: investigator working for a man named Bob. He said Bob

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Speaker 1: was the owner of a gun shop in Salem, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: and Bob had recently obtained a photograph of an ATF

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Speaker 1: agent named John Comery. The caller said he wanted to

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Speaker 1: tell agent Comery to be careful, and then he hung up.

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Speaker 1: It might not sound like much, but it set off

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Speaker 1: alarm bells for agent John Comery. He'd been investigating Robert Maler,

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Speaker 1: a gun dealer in Salem, for over a year, and

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Speaker 1: they were just about to take the case to a

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Speaker 1: grand jury. It wasn't really anything too serious, just some

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Speaker 1: fraudulent paperwork for a gun purchase, pretty typical fare for

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Speaker 1: an ATF agent. But now, just three weeks before that

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Speaker 1: court date, here was this troubling development. Sure, there's no

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Speaker 1: way to know if the anonymous caller was telling the truth,

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Speaker 1: if Robert Maler really was talking about taking out the

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Speaker 1: agent who'd been investigating him.

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Speaker 2: But how had the.

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Speaker 1: Caller even known, And if the caller knew that Agent

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Speaker 1: Komery was about to arrest Robert Maler, Robert Maler probably

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Speaker 1: knew too. So Agent Komery called the US Attorney's office

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Speaker 1: and he asked if they could speed up that timeline.

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Speaker 1: They could present the case to the grand jury later,

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Speaker 1: but they needed to arrest Maller now. The prosecutor if

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Speaker 1: he could write the criminal complaint and get that in

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Speaker 1: front of the judge and make the arrest immediately. The

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Speaker 1: prosecutor said no, the case was already scheduled for the

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Speaker 1: grand jury and changing the calendar now would just put

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Speaker 1: the judge in a bad mood. So they waited, and

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Speaker 1: a grand jury did indict Robert Moller three weeks later,

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Speaker 1: but when the ATF went to pick him up, he

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Speaker 1: was gone.

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Speaker 2: By the time.

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Speaker 1: ATF agents saw Robert Maler again two years later, he'd

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Speaker 1: already smuggled hundreds of guns halfway across the world to

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Speaker 1: arm a group that hoped to start a civil war.

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Speaker 1: I'm Molly Conger, and this is we're little guys. This

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Speaker 1: is a silly one to the extent that anything on

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Speaker 1: this show can really be said to be lighthearted. I

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Speaker 1: needed something that wasn't too complicated to get me back

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Speaker 1: into the swing of things after two weeks off. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't sure I even remembered how to do this at

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Speaker 1: all after such a relaxing vacation. As much as I

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Speaker 1: love my work, it was good to get away from

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Speaker 1: the weird little guys for a minute, if I'm being honest.

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Speaker 1: And in the time since my last episode, I got married.

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Speaker 1: It was beautiful and fun and the cake was really good,

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Speaker 1: and I went on my honeymoon. I was really worried

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Speaker 1: that I wouldn't be able to properly enjoy doing nothing.

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Speaker 1: That's not really my thing, But it turns out that

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Speaker 1: lying on a white sandy beach listening to the gentle

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Speaker 1: waves of the Caribbean sea.

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Speaker 2: Also be my thing. I loved it.

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Speaker 1: I do think I'll probably go back to keeping my

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Speaker 1: private life private for the most part. That's been my

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Speaker 1: preference for a few years, and for good reason. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of weirdos out there, you know. But

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Speaker 1: I couldn't just disappear for a few weeks without any explanation,

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Speaker 1: and I did put a lot of thought into the

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Speaker 1: decision to share a bit of myself with the wider world.

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Speaker 1: Getting married was a joyful thing for me and for

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Speaker 1: my partner, and it felt very grim to even consider

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Speaker 1: keeping that to myself just because some weird little guy

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Speaker 1: out there might try to make me regret sharing my

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Speaker 1: happy news. So no regrets. And it is very funny

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Speaker 1: to me that the only weird little guy I've seen

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Speaker 1: weighing in on the subject so far really does not

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Speaker 1: have any business opining on other people's relationship. I mean, look,

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Speaker 1: I know we've all got our baggage, but if your

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Speaker 1: last marriage ended because you caught your son in law

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Speaker 1: in bed with your wife, you should mind your business.

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Speaker 2: But that's a story for another day.

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Speaker 1: Today we're talking about guns. A lot of guns, guns

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Speaker 1: where they shouldn't have been, guns bought and sold by

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Speaker 1: men who shouldn't have had them, Guns that showed up

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Speaker 1: in places they weren't allowed to go, and guns that

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Speaker 1: were found in unexpected places, like under a pillow an

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Speaker 1: empty hotel room in Los Angeles. We're in a mysterious

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Speaker 1: shipping container on a farm in violation of international sanctions.

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Speaker 1: I know, I said I was done with South Africa

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Speaker 1: and I am. I am for now, at least I

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Speaker 1: swear this episode is perfectly listenable as a stack and

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Speaker 1: alone bit of entertainment. But it is something I came

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Speaker 1: across while I was researching those episodes. When I started

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Speaker 1: researching the story that turned into that monstrous, nearly three

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Speaker 1: month long eight episode arc about Monica Huggetts Stone, one

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Speaker 1: of the first side characters I made a note of

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Speaker 1: was a man I never actually even mentioned in those episodes,

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Speaker 1: an arms dealer in Oregon named Robert Maller. In the

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Speaker 1: section of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Report where

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Speaker 1: I first found Monica, the section about connections between right

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Speaker 1: wing terrorist groups in South Africa and extremist groups abroad,

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Speaker 1: there's a passing mention of mister Maller. Like Monica, his

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Speaker 1: name is only in the report the one time, and

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Speaker 1: it's in the paragraph immediately.

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Speaker 2: After the one about her.

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Speaker 1: The report reads, mister Robert Maler, an American city, claims

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Speaker 1: in his application to have been recruited by the former

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Speaker 1: South African police to act as a firearms instructor. Maller

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Speaker 1: was caught in the United States after he illegally imported

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Speaker 1: a large cache of weapons to South Africa using fraudulent

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Speaker 1: names and passports. He claims allegiance to the Conservative Party

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Speaker 1: and said he had contact with other groups like the

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Speaker 1: Africaner Folks Front and the AWB. He also said that

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Speaker 1: he was the USA fundraising representative of the AWB. I know,

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Speaker 1: I just said, you don't need to have listened to

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Speaker 1: those eight episodes about white supremacist terrorism in South Africa

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Speaker 1: during the fall upartheid to understand this episode. And you don't,

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Speaker 1: It's okay if you didn't join me on that saga.

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Speaker 1: All you really need to know right now is that

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Speaker 1: the AWB, the group referred to in that paragraph was

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Speaker 1: the Africaner Resistance Movement, an explicitly neo Nazi group founded

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies in South Africa. They kind of

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Speaker 1: still exist, I guess, but in the eighties and early

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Speaker 1: nineties they did quite a bit of terrorism, bombings, murders, shootings.

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Speaker 1: They tried to participate in a minor coup, but they

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Speaker 1: fucked it all up and some of them died, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: And to do all of that, obviously they needed guns.

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Speaker 1: And if you did listen to those other episodes about

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Speaker 1: all that violence in South Africa. You know that they

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Speaker 1: had guns, They smuggled guns in from outside of the country,

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Speaker 1: and they stole guns from military bases. But what I

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Speaker 1: didn't really get into in those episodes is why every

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Speaker 1: single gun the AWB had seemed to be stolen or smuggled.

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Speaker 1: See by the nineteen nineties, it was getting pretty hard

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Speaker 1: to find a brand new gun in South Africa. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution

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Speaker 1: one eighty one calling for all countries to voluntarily stop

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Speaker 1: selling or allowing export of guns, ammunition, and military equipment

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Speaker 1: to South Africa. In nineteen seventy seven, Resolution four eighteen

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Speaker 1: made that embargo mandatory. A subsequent UN resolution in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty six tightened those restrictions and clarified that, yes, allowing

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Speaker 1: sales to pass through a third country is still a

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Speaker 1: violation of the embargo. On paper, no one was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be selling military equipment to South Africa, and yet

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Speaker 1: South African soldiers, police, paramilitaries, civilians, and terrorist groups all

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Speaker 1: seemed to have plenty of foreign hardware. After that initial

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Speaker 1: voluntary embargo was passed in nineteen sixty three, the United

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Speaker 1: States announced it intention to comply fully, but Henry Kissinger's

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Speaker 1: interpretation of the resolution allowed the US government to continue

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Speaker 1: selling things like military aircraft as long as everyone pretended

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Speaker 1: that they believed that those things would be used for

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Speaker 1: civilian purposes. In nineteen seventy eight, fully half of the

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Speaker 1: planes in use by the South African Air Force were

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Speaker 1: made by US companies. The same loophole was used to

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Speaker 1: supply the South African military with US made communications equipment

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Speaker 1: and computers. Even after Jimmy Carter stopped these gray area

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Speaker 1: sales to the South African government, private companies in South

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Speaker 1: Africa were still free to make the exact same purchases,

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Speaker 1: and they often did so on behalf of the government,

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Speaker 1: and some countries just kept openly selling weapons to South

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Speaker 1: Africa no matter how many resolutions were passed. The Chilean

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Speaker 1: government under Pinochet had no issue violating the resolution, and

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Speaker 1: Paraguay was known to turn a blind eye when other

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Speaker 1: countries laundered those transactions through them. But nobody, and I

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Speaker 1: mean nobody, sold South Africa more guns, planes, bombs, and

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Speaker 1: drones than Israel. In one of several reports submitted to

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Speaker 1: the United Nations in nineteen eighty five by the UN

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Speaker 1: Committee Against Apartheid. The committee's chairman notes that they had

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Speaker 1: been aware of Israel's ongoing assistance on South Africa's nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons program since nineteen seventy seven. The report quote condemns

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Speaker 1: this diabolical alliance and calls for concerted international action against it.

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Speaker 1: With substantial assistance from Israel, South Africa was able to

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Speaker 1: eventually scale up domestic production for most of their military needs.

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Speaker 1: South African soldiers carried domestically produced copies of the Israeli UZI,

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Speaker 1: but small arms were a different story. There was a

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Speaker 1: growing demand for guns among white South African civilians, so

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Speaker 1: corporations did what they always do, and they found a

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Speaker 1: way to make money meeting that need. There were a

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Speaker 1: handful of high profile incidents in the late seventies. Employees

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Speaker 1: of American gun manufacturers Colt Industries and Winchester Arms were

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Speaker 1: caught selling massive quantities of firearms to dummy corporations operating

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Speaker 1: in third party countries, and then those arms were trafficked

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Speaker 1: into South Africa and sold at a premium to eager buyers.

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Speaker 1: When Walter Plowman pled guilty to trafficking firearms manufactured by

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Speaker 1: Colt through a company in West Germany. He pleaded for leniency,

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Speaker 1: telling the court that it wouldn't be fair to punish

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Speaker 1: him harshly because it was an open secret that the

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Speaker 1: State Department knew this was happening and routinely looked the

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Speaker 1: other way. That's not a great argument for the court,

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Speaker 1: but I do think it's true. Winchester Arms was caught

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Speaker 1: selling thousands of rifles and shotguns and millions upon millions

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Speaker 1: of rounds of ammunitions to a shell company in the

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Speaker 1: Canary Islands. The Canary Islands is a tiny island territory

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Speaker 1: with a population of barely a million people. They didn't

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Speaker 1: need fifty million bullets. That should have been a red

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Speaker 1: flag on the export declaration, but it went on for years.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, an arms dealer in Detroit was

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Speaker 1: sentenced to just two years in prison after pleading guilty

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Speaker 1: to shipping nearly half a million dollars worth of guns

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Speaker 1: and ammunition to South Africa in at least twenty one

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Speaker 1: separate shipments. The Washington Post article that year about his

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Speaker 1: conviction notes that it wasn't police work or strict export

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Speaker 1: control that caught him. It was a FOURKL life operator

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Speaker 1: in the freight hangar at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. The employee

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Speaker 1: was stacking boxes in the hangar when he noticed that

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Speaker 1: one box was torn open a bit, exposing its contents.

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Speaker 1: Packages containing bullets are required to be labeled as such,

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Speaker 1: and he reported to his superior that this box was not.

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Speaker 1: It was easy money. Apparently South Africa was desperate for guns,

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Speaker 1: so they were willing to pay a significant premium to

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Speaker 1: a discrete arms dealer. And despite the illegality of these sales,

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Speaker 1: everyone seemed to be turning a blind eye. I couldn't

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Speaker 1: tell you now, based on the records available to me,

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Speaker 1: how widespread this understanding was in the arm stealing community.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what the numbers would have been like

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Speaker 1: if you'd pulled American gun shop owners in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 1: about their willingness to try this, But I am well

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Speaker 1: to bet that for every high profile prosecution of a

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Speaker 1: guy who got greedy or sloppy and got caught, there

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Speaker 1: were probably dozens of guys who dabbled making small shipments

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Speaker 1: that never got flagged. Because in the cases we do

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Speaker 1: have where guys got caught, every single one of them

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Speaker 1: is pretty upfront about how easy it was, and the

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Speaker 1: punishments were light enough that it wouldn't necessarily be a

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Speaker 1: deal breaker for someone who wanted to make hundreds of

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Speaker 1: thousands of dollars for mailing a package. And in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety two, Robert Maler was running out of options. He

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Speaker 1: had a lot of guns and no way to sell them.

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Speaker 1: I guess we should back up for a second. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, Robert Maler and his wife Nancy bought

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Speaker 1: a commercial property in say at an auction. They got

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Speaker 1: a great deal on the place. They paid about sixty

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Speaker 1: percent of the assessed value for the storefront, and within

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00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 1: a few months he'd gotten his federal firearms license and

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Speaker 1: opened a gun store, calling it Name Guns. That's all

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Speaker 1: caps with periods name. I assume business was decent. They

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Speaker 1: ran ads in the local paper for holiday specials, scratch

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Speaker 1: and dent sales, and special events. In nineteen ninety there

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Speaker 1: was this enigmatic series of ads in the classified section

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Speaker 1: of the Statesman Journal that read miss Elliefonte, pro gun activist,

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Speaker 1: invites you to stop by and visit her Tuesday through

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Speaker 1: Sunday at Name Guns. I could find no explanation for

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Speaker 1: that could possibly mean. I looked everywhere I could think

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00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 1: to look, but I can't find a pro gun activist

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Speaker 1: using the pseudonym miss Ellie Fante. That's sort of like

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00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:09,520
Speaker 1: a stylized elephant. I don't know what that means. It

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Speaker 1: is hard to say how the ATF found out about

243
00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:15,800
Speaker 1: the machine guns. Unfortunately, the federal courts in Oregon have

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Speaker 1: not digitized their collection of records from the early nineties,

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00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:23,399
Speaker 1: so there's definitely information in that record that I just

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00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:26,840
Speaker 1: don't have. But based on the records I do have

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00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:30,040
Speaker 1: access to without flying to Portland to plead with a

248
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Speaker 1: court clerk, I have a pretty good guess. I think

249
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Speaker 1: it was Gary. You see, in nineteen ninety, the tiny

250
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Speaker 1: town of Falls City, Oregon, had a population of about

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Speaker 1: eight hundred people, and two of those people were Robert

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Speaker 1: and Nancy Maller. They commuted about half an hour into

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Speaker 1: Salem to run their gun store, and in nineteen ninety,

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00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:57,840
Speaker 1: Falls City was looking to replace their entire police force.

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Speaker 1: That sounds dramatic, but they were looking for a new

256
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Speaker 1: police chief. The town relied on the county sheriff for

257
00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:09,959
Speaker 1: anything major, but in town for day to day things,

258
00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:12,720
Speaker 1: they did have their own police department, and it was

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Speaker 1: staffed with just a single officer, the chief, and in

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Speaker 1: April of nineteen ninety, Fall City, Oregon, made the baffling

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Speaker 1: decision to hire a thirty one year old man with

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00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:30,119
Speaker 1: no police experience. He wasn't even certified to be a

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Speaker 1: police officer. He was not qualified for the job. For

264
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Speaker 1: the first few months after he was hired, he wasn't

265
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Speaker 1: even in town. He was at the Oregon Police Academy

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00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:43,959
Speaker 1: getting certified. Gary Allen himself had previously worked as a

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Speaker 1: security guard at a casino in Nevada, and before he

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Speaker 1: moved to Falls City, he'd been a private investigator in Portland,

269
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Speaker 1: but he'd never been a real cop before, and it

270
00:18:55,000 --> 00:19:01,560
Speaker 1: turns out he wasn't really that good at it. Gary

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00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:04,359
Speaker 1: self graduated from the police Academy at the end of July,

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Speaker 1: so he officially started work as the police chief in

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Speaker 1: Falls City in August of nineteen ninety. By December thirty

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Speaker 1: first of that same year, he'd been placed on unpaid

275
00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:22,080
Speaker 1: leave pending an investigation into allegations that he had simply

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00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:27,240
Speaker 1: stopped showing up for work entirely. Later that same night,

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Speaker 1: New Year's Eve nineteen ninety, witnesses saw Gary get into

278
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:35,600
Speaker 1: an argument with his girlfriend at the bar. The articles

279
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:39,199
Speaker 1: I could find don't name the girlfriend or weigh in

280
00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:42,680
Speaker 1: on whether Gary's wife knew that he had a girlfriend.

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Speaker 1: So after getting into an argument at the bar with

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Speaker 1: his girlfriend, he leaves, and he's seen leaving the bar

283
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Speaker 1: a little after one am, and then witnesses see him

284
00:19:54,760 --> 00:20:00,240
Speaker 1: start kicking in the doors of several homes. None of

285
00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:06,760
Speaker 1: the reporting explains this. He was convicted of burglary, but

286
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:09,880
Speaker 1: that just means he entered at least one of those homes.

287
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like he stole anything. One newspaper article

288
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:18,560
Speaker 1: offered the vague explanation that he'd been drinking heavily and

289
00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:22,400
Speaker 1: he was at this point looking for either his girlfriend

290
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:26,880
Speaker 1: or an unnamed male acquaintance, presumably because he wasn't done

291
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,200
Speaker 1: with the argument that started in the bar, and so

292
00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:34,439
Speaker 1: somewhere in between breaking into the first house and the

293
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 1: third or fourth one, he encountered some random passers by

294
00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk and he stabbed one of them in

295
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:45,320
Speaker 1: the neck. That sixteen year old boy did need a

296
00:20:45,359 --> 00:21:03,359
Speaker 1: few stitches, but he was not critically injured. Gary self

297
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:09,159
Speaker 1: was fired, obviously in exchange for pleading guilty. Most of

298
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:12,800
Speaker 1: the charges were dropped. He was convicted of one count

299
00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:16,880
Speaker 1: of burglary and one count of assault and sentenced to

300
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:19,639
Speaker 1: just ten days in jail, which he was allowed to

301
00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 1: serve on weekends, but the conviction made him a felon.

302
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 1: After his sentencing, the prosecutor told reporters, quote, we wanted

303
00:21:29,040 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 1: to get this guy out of firearms and out of

304
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 1: law enforcement. And the prosecutor specifically mentioned that Gary self

305
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:42,280
Speaker 1: had a significant collection of firearms, one that included several

306
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 1: machine guns. So I think it's safe to say the

307
00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:51,119
Speaker 1: investigation into the machine guns really got going after Gary

308
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: Self's arrest for that strange drunken rampage a little after

309
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:59,200
Speaker 1: midnight on New Year's Day nineteen ninety one. The lone

310
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:02,159
Speaker 1: ATF report that I could actually get my hands on

311
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 1: indicates that they did open this investigation into Gary shortly

312
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 1: after his arrest on those assault charges. Agent John Comery

313
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 1: received approval for the investigation on January twenty second, nineteen

314
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: ninety one. It wasn't a complicated case. The ATF solved

315
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:26,679
Speaker 1: it pretty quickly. During Gary Self's short stint as the

316
00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:30,520
Speaker 1: police chief of False City, he had befriended Robert Maller.

317
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:36,400
Speaker 1: The pair used official police department letterhead and lied when

318
00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: they filled out the ATF Form five, the Application for

319
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:43,919
Speaker 1: tax Exempt Transfer and Registration of Firearms. And so they

320
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:47,679
Speaker 1: filled out this paperwork as though Robert Maler the gun dealer,

321
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,359
Speaker 1: were facilitating a legitimate purchase of machine guns for a

322
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:55,360
Speaker 1: government agency, in this case, the Fall City Police Department.

323
00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 1: In fact, the two men just wanted the machine guns

324
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 1: for their person collections. Gary self was federally charged with

325
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: possessing an unregistered firearm later that same year, and he

326
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: pretty quickly entered a guilty plea. And so in this case,

327
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Speaker 1: I have the docket sheet for Gary's federal case. The

328
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,280
Speaker 1: actual documents aren't digitized, but I have the Dockett sheet

329
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,440
Speaker 1: and it's not sealed. And I have a lot of

330
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:27,200
Speaker 1: news stories from nineteen ninety one about Gary's drunken rampage,

331
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Speaker 1: about Gary getting fired, about Gary bleeding guilty to stabbing

332
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:35,280
Speaker 1: a teenager. But what I don't have are any news

333
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: stories about the former police chief fraudulently obtaining a machine

334
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: gun for personal use. I know the digital record isn't perfect.

335
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 1: There are plenty of things that existed in nineteen ninety

336
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,120
Speaker 1: one that I'll never see.

337
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 2: But it does seem.

338
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 1: Odd that those same local newspapers that reported Gary self's

339
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: assault charges don't seem to have run stories about Gary

340
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: getting arrested again a few months later on a federal

341
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: firearms charge. I can't explain it. So looking at our

342
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: timeline here, Gary gets arrested for assault in January. He

343
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,160
Speaker 1: pleads guilty in February, but at this point he doesn't

344
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:19,239
Speaker 1: know yet that the ATF is looking into him. In

345
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: October of nineteen ninety one, Robert Mahler's federal firearms license

346
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 1: expired and he doesn't bother renewing it. Yes, I should explain,

347
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: just in case you're not familiar. So this is a

348
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: license that you have to apply for with the Bureau

349
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:38,199
Speaker 1: of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to be allowed to deal guns.

350
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 1: But you can't be running a gun store without an

351
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: FFL and you have to renew it every three years.

352
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: So at this point he's been running the gun store

353
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: for three years, the license is going to expire. Normally

354
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: you would just renew it, but he doesn't. I think

355
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: at this point he knows the ATF probably won't reissue it.

356
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 1: So I mean, no one's been charged yet, but he

357
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:06,679
Speaker 1: had to have known something was coming. So, despite no

358
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: longer having a license to legally sell guns, his gun

359
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:14,360
Speaker 1: store is still open five days a week. And it's

360
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,879
Speaker 1: around this time in October of nineteen ninety one that

361
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 1: Robert Maller starts taking trips to South Africa. In November,

362
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 1: Gary Self is indicted on that machine gun charge, and

363
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: so now Robert Maller absolutely knows that his days are numbered.

364
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: His name is on that paperwork. If Gary is guilty,

365
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 1: then so is he. In March of nineteen ninety two,

366
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: just a few weeks after Gary Self blood guilty to

367
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: possessing that machine gun, Robert Maller went to the county

368
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: clerk's office and he put the deed of his house

369
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: in his wife's name, and he filed paperwork to give

370
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: his wife Nancy power of attorney, so if he were

371
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: for some reason absent, she would be legally empowered to

372
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: make decisions regarding their property. He's preparing to be unavailable.

373
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: But is that because he knows he's going to prison,

374
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 1: or because he's preparing to do whatever it takes to

375
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: not go to prison. In early April of nineteen ninety two,

376
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: Gary Self is sentenced on that gun charge. He doesn't

377
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: get any jail time. He has to do home detention

378
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: for a few months, and he'll have a few years

379
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 1: of probation, but no jail time. And in that lone

380
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 1: ATF report that I do have Agent COOMERI wrote that

381
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 1: both the Portland Police and an informant would later report

382
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: to the ATF that Robert Maler had expressed interest in

383
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:57,119
Speaker 1: having both the agent and his co defendant quote knocked off.

384
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: So now I'm wondering maybe in April of nineteen ninety two,

385
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,199
Speaker 1: maybe Gary self was scared. He was stuck in his

386
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: house on home detention, he couldn't leave, and he thought

387
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: Robert Maler wanted to kill him. Maybe the anonymous caller

388
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: who warned the ATF that Moller was going to try

389
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: to kill Agent Coomery had his own reasons to want

390
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: Moller in custody, But we'll never know. The report says

391
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: that they never identified the caller. When agents did finally

392
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 1: get the go ahead in May of nineteen ninety two

393
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: to arrest Robert Maller for purchasing those machine guns, he

394
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 1: was gone. He was already in South Africa. Robert Maller

395
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: was in South Africa for most of nineteen ninety two

396
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety three. He didn't come home for good

397
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: until March of nineteen ninety four, and in the two

398
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 1: years he spent abiding arrest on federal gun charges, he

399
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:04,959
Speaker 1: did come home a few times. News reports say he

400
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 1: entered the country at least twice using a false passport.

401
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: I know one of them was when he came home

402
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: for the last time, and it's hard to say when

403
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: the other one was. But in January of nineteen ninety three,

404
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,440
Speaker 1: the Clerk of Court in Moltnomah County recorded a transaction

405
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: and listed the payer as Bob Mahler, and the transaction

406
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: was a filing fee for a divorce petition between a

407
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:35,719
Speaker 1: Bob Maler and a Nancy Maller. This petition did end

408
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: up getting dismissed. They never followed up on it, so

409
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: they didn't get divorced in nineteen ninety three. Listeners in

410
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: Oregon may have noticed that the Moltnoma County courthouse is

411
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: notably in Portland, and that's an hour and a half

412
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: away from where they live in Falls City. I guess

413
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: maybe he thought no one would recognize him there. When

414
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: Robert Maller's US passport expired in nineteen ninety three. He

415
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: couldn't renew it. He was a fugitive, but he didn't

416
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: let that slow him down. Now again, Unfortunately, the Oregon

417
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: federal courts have not digitized their early nineties transcripts, so

418
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: I don't have access to the trial transcript from his

419
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: earlier criminal cases. But what I do have is an

420
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: unpublished opinion from the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel in the Ninth

421
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: Circuit Court of Appeals. Because Robert and Nancy Maller did

422
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 1: eventually get divorced in nineteen ninety five, and after that divorce,

423
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 1: Nancy filed for bankruptcy. During her bankruptcy case, Robert Maler

424
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: filed a complaint with the bankruptcy court that Nancy had

425
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: sold assets that belonged to him. The court didn't agree,

426
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: but that's not what matters here. I don't care about

427
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: their assets. Normally, when you swear before a judge that

428
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: you're going to tell the whole truth and nothing but

429
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: the truth to help you God, the assumption is that

430
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: you mean it. But if you have a history of

431
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: being a liar, like the kind of lies that end

432
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: up in a court record, real serious lies, the kind

433
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:18,600
Speaker 1: that are crimes. That's fair game. Opposing parties can bring

434
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: that up to impeach your credibility. So it's in an

435
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: excerpted transcript of this hearing in his ex wife's bankruptcy

436
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: case that we find this fascinating admission. So Robert Maler

437
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: is on the stand under oath, and Nancy's attorney holds

438
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: up an exhibit and asks him do you recognize this?

439
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 2: And he does.

440
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: It's a South African passport and inside the passport the

441
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: picture is of Robert Maler, but the name isn't his.

442
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: It was issued to a man named Jan van der

443
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 1: meervh attorney asks him, how did you get this? Did

444
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: you steal this man's passport and just switch out the picture?

445
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 2: How did you.

446
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: Manage to get what appears to be a very real

447
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: fake passport? And Maller answers quote, he went down with

448
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: me and helped me fill out the forms and walked

449
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: me through the procedure to get a passport, and we

450
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: used his ID to get a passport for me. And

451
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: that's so interesting to me. I'd been wondering for a

452
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: while now how this network was able to get so

453
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: many people so many fake passports. Again, we don't have

454
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: to backtrack into those South Africa episodes, but a foreign

455
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: mercenary or a gun smuggler with a fake passport was

456
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 1: a recurring theme. It was never explained in any of

457
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: the sources I used how this kept happening because their

458
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: fake passport seemed to be pretty he could, I mean

459
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: people were crossing borders with them to evade international arrest warrants.

460
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: Leonard Wienendahl was able to enter the UK while he

461
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: was on Interpol's most wanted list using one of these

462
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: fake passports. So maybe this is how they were getting them.

463
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: Someone in the passport office just looked the other way

464
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 1: while two men filled out the paperwork together and in

465
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: they stamped paperwork they knew to be fraudulent. These fake

466
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 1: passports worked perfectly because they weren't fake passports. They were

467
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: real passports with fake names. Well that's not quite right either,

468
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 1: is it. Because the name on the passport isn't fake.

469
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: It's not a randomly chosen pseudonym, it's not a made

470
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: up person. It is someone's real name. It just wasn't

471
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: Robert Maller's real name. I wish I could tell you

472
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: that I know who yan Vandrmreva was the problem with

473
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: these Afrikaans' names is that there's not very many of them,

474
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 1: so a lot of people have the same or very

475
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: similar names, and so I know there were more than

476
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: a few yon Vandrmrevas out there. So I can't promise

477
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: you that it means anything at all that there was

478
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: a yan Vandrmreva who would have been the right age

479
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: and who was a South African policeman in the early nineties.

480
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: That yon Vandrmreva, the one I'm thinking of, worked in

481
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: military intelligence and was later charged in connection with the

482
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven massacre in Durban that killed thirteen people,

483
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: most of whom were children. Yan Vandrmreva was not convicted

484
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: the court failed to present sufficient evidence that he'd been

485
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: the one who threw the murder weapons into a smelting

486
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: furnace to destroy the evidence.

487
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 2: In fact, all twenty.

488
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: Of those charged with carrying out that massacre were acquitted.

489
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 2: But we know what happened.

490
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: Someone shot those children, but it could just have easily

491
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: been some other man named yan who helped this arms

492
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: dealer get that fake passport. I really couldn't tell you,

493
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 1: and regardless of whose friend Yon might have been. It

494
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: was this passport that Robert Moller used to travel back

495
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: to the United States undetected while he was evading arrest.

496
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 1: So in nineteen ninety two, Nancy Moller is at home

497
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: in Oregon. They've had to close the gun store. Her

498
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:29,760
Speaker 1: husband is missing, and the store doesn't have a valid

499
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:34,879
Speaker 1: license to sell guns. But they still have a lot

500
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: of guns. And I'm sure there's some procedure for people

501
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: who find themselves in this situation. I bet it's not

502
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: even really all that rare. I didn't bother looking up

503
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: exactly what you're supposed to do with excess inventory if

504
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: you're no longer allowed to sell it. But I do

505
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: know what you're not supposed to do, and that's sell

506
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: it anyway. And you're really not supposed to sell those

507
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: guns anyway by exporting them overseas without an export license.

508
00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 1: And you're really really not supposed to sell those guns

509
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 1: anyway by exporting them to a country subject to a

510
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: worldwide arms embargo. But in August of nineteen ninety three,

511
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:17,879
Speaker 1: Nancy Maller did just that.

512
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 2: She shipped a forty foot.

513
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:24,879
Speaker 1: Cargo container to South Africa and in it there were

514
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: some of her husband's things, some personal belongings that he

515
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: might like to have now that he's living abroad. One

516
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: news article lists quote a vehicle as being among those possessions,

517
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: but it doesn't say what sort of vehicle it was.

518
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: Robert Moller did have a habit of collecting military surplus gear,

519
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 1: including military cargo trucks, and so she was shipping him

520
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: something like, for example, an M thirty five cargo truck,

521
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: a twenty three foot long vehicle that weighs fifteen thousand pounds.

522
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 2: That would explain the need for.

523
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: Forty foot container, but it doesn't say. I don't know

524
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: if he owned an M thirty five truck in nineteen

525
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 1: ninety three, but I do know that he owned four

526
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: of them in twenty sixteen, so he did like them.

527
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 1: There's a lot of vagueness about the general contents of

528
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: the container. I couldn't tell you how many radios or

529
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: sleeping bags or camouflage uniforms were in there, but I

530
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 1: do know that there were two hundred and twenty seven

531
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 1: guns and nearly fifty thousand rounds of ammunition. The container

532
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: arrived in South Africa in October of nineteen ninety three,

533
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,200
Speaker 1: and so if you did listen to those South Africa episodes,

534
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: you might recall this point in the timeline. This is

535
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 1: right around the time that the Africaner Resistance movement is

536
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 1: ramping up international efforts to recruit foreign mercenaries, many of

537
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: whom brought stolen firearms with them. But Robert Moller's cargo

538
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: container held a lot more guns than any of those

539
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: German mercenaries could have ever smuggled out of Bosnia. Every

540
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: gun counted, and Maller had really delivered. In February of

541
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, Robert Maller, using his fake passport, applied

542
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: for a visa to visit the United States. His fake

543
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: passport was stamped on entry in New York later that month.

544
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:45,919
Speaker 1: It's not clear why he flew home just then, right

545
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: as things were heating up in South Africa. The Africaner

546
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 1: Resistance movement believed they were poised to start a civil war.

547
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 2: Right this is February.

548
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:58,399
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety four, and in April of nineteen ninety four,

549
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 1: they hoped to set off enough bombs and cause enough

550
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: chaos that there couldn't be an election. Maybe he hoped

551
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 1: to return quickly with more weapons.

552
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 2: He did tell the.

553
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: Court later that he was the American fundraising representative for

554
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 1: the group, so maybe this was the last minute effort

555
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 1: to raise more money for the race war. Either way,

556
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 1: he never made it Back at home in Oregon, he

557
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: was spotted by someone who called in a tip and

558
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 1: he was arrested on March seventh, nineteen ninety four, on

559
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 1: those old charges from nineteen ninety two. At that point,

560
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: that's all he's charged with, and he wasn't charged with

561
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: evading arrest for two years. They didn't charge him for

562
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: entering the country with a forged passport or fraudulently obtaining

563
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: a visa. They even released him on a ten thousand

564
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,959
Speaker 1: dollars bond, despite the fact that he had just spent

565
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: two years hiding out on a foreign country and he

566
00:38:55,320 --> 00:39:00,399
Speaker 1: clearly had the ability to obtain fake passports. I've seen

567
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: a lot of bond hearings, and I can't think of

568
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 1: a single judge I've ever seen in my life who

569
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 1: would grant pre trial release to someone who was arrested

570
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:15,320
Speaker 1: with a fake passport. But nevertheless, he entered a guilty

571
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: plea for making a false statement on a firearm application,

572
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:20,760
Speaker 1: and in June of nineteen ninety four. He was sentenced

573
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: to six months of home confinement, and that could have

574
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: been the end of it. After all, the race War

575
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,360
Speaker 1: didn't even happen in South Africa. While Robert Maller was

576
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: stuck in court in Oregon, the election was held, Apartheid ended.

577
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 2: It was over.

578
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,280
Speaker 1: Until the rest of the guns turned up. In October

579
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety four, the South African police found the

580
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: shipping container. It still had most of the guns and

581
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 1: ammunition inside, inexplicably, along with a large amount of survival gear, camouflage, uniforms,

582
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 1: radio equipment, sleeping bags, things like that. A press release

583
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: from the police in Pretoria said they knew that the

584
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: container belonged to an American and that that American was

585
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: no longer in South Africa, and this time things moved quickly.

586
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: South African police contacted federal authorities in the United States,

587
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: and in November of nineteen ninety four, a swat team

588
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 1: surrounded Robert and Nancy Maller's apartment. They surrendered peacefully, and

589
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: they were both arrested. Robert Maller agreed to plead guilty

590
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: to exporting firearms without a license in exchange the charges

591
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: against his wife were dropped.

592
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 2: He served a little over a year.

593
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 1: Of his eighteen month sentence, and he was released from

594
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: prison in October of nineteen ninety six. By then, he

595
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 1: and Nancy were divorced and Nancy had remarried a prison guard,

596
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: Robert Maller, remarried in two thousand and five. And you

597
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: might think, well, he's learned his lesson. He's been convicted

598
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: twice for federal crimes involving guns, not crimes of violence exactly.

599
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 1: They were paperwork crimes. The things he was actually convicted

600
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: of were just paperwork, lying on a form, not having

601
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 1: an export license. But he was a twice convicted felon,

602
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: and he'd gotten off pretty light all things considered. He

603
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 1: did not learn his lesson. He was convicted for violating

604
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 1: federal firearms laws for the third time after pleading guilty

605
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen to being a felon in possession of

606
00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: a firearm. After sitting through two days of the state's

607
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:36,319
Speaker 1: case at trial, he changed his mind and entered a

608
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: guilty plea. But he only admitted to one of the guns,

609
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,800
Speaker 1: but there were more than forty of them and forty

610
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: thousand rounds of ammunition.

611
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:49,720
Speaker 2: As a felon.

612
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: He wasn't supposed to have any guns or any bullets.

613
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of us could shrug it

614
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: off and say it's nobody's business if a seventy year

615
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: old man in rural Oregon kept a rifle on hand

616
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: for putting down sick animals or shooting a predator that

617
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: came too close to his cows, or something like that.

618
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: But that's not what this was. He was hoarding bullets,

619
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: and according to testimony at trial, he was conning friends

620
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: who didn't know he wasn't allowed to have these things

621
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 1: into making straw purchases for him. So not only was

622
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:30,919
Speaker 1: he breaking the law, he was making other people participate

623
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: without their knowledge.

624
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 2: His defense was confusing.

625
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: The whole situation started in twenty twelve when he bought

626
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: a couple of military cargo trucks at an auction in

627
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: Washington State. But these giant trucks are so big that

628
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 1: in order to drive them on the highway you need

629
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: a commercial driver's license, and Robert Moller didn't have one,

630
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: but his friend Bill did, and Bill agreed to go

631
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 1: up to Washington with him and drive the trucks home.

632
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: When they got back to Oregon, Moller had another favor

633
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: to ask. He didn't want his wife to know that

634
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: he'd spend a bunch of money on four military surplus trucks,

635
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: so would Bill mind storing them at his house? He

636
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: had plenty of land, so he agreed. But then the

637
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 1: favors just kept coming. Moller kept buying things and asking,

638
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: can I just keep this at your house? Can I

639
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 1: put this in your garage? Can I put this in

640
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: your shed? Can I put this on your land? He

641
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: just kept asking, and Bill kept saying yes. Moller purchased

642
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: a storage trailer that he wanted to fill with disaster supplies,

643
00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: doomsday prepper stuff.

644
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 2: He didn't have room for.

645
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,759
Speaker 1: It, and again, he didn't want his wife to know

646
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: he'd spent money on it, so could he keep it

647
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: at Bill's house? And then it was a gun safe,

648
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:58,360
Speaker 1: and then another gun safe, and then several car loads

649
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: of guns. Suddenly Bill's garage is completely taken over by

650
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: three massive gun safes filled with dozens of guns. And

651
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 1: Bill doesn't dislike guns. He has a gun safe. He

652
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: keeps it in his bedroom. But Bill's wife, Connie is

653
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: losing her patience. Maller has stored so many boxes of

654
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: emergency supplies and cases of AMMO in her garage that

655
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: she can no longer access the workspace where she cans

656
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: her vegetables the guns needed to go. Exactly when Connie

657
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: learned about Maller's past is murky. There are a few

658
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: versions of this timeline, but she wasn't the only one

659
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: asking questions. Here's where it gets a little confusing, and

660
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: I wish I could draw you a diagram. Connie, Bill's wife,

661
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 1: has a brother named Adam, and Adam is married to

662
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: a woman named Kara, who happens to be Moller's stepdaughter.

663
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 1: I think this really is mostly coincidental. They live in

664
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: a very small town. Bill and Connie were friends with Moller,

665
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: but they didn't really think of themselves as being family.

666
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 1: Although technically Connie's sister in law was his stepdaughter, so

667
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:17,920
Speaker 1: the fact that they're related is largely coincidental. But Connie's

668
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: brother is part of this story too. Connie would later

669
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: tell an ATF agent that she'd googled Maller sometime in

670
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: late twenty fifteen, so that's a few months before she

671
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 1: called the ATF to report him. Maller's attorneys argued that

672
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 1: Connie only called the ATF because she was mad at

673
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: him over some kind of personal dispute.

674
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,359
Speaker 2: But Connie says she had to do it.

675
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: You see, her brother, Adam was a federal agent with

676
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Land Management, so he's not like a

677
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:49,320
Speaker 1: regular cop.

678
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:50,760
Speaker 2: He's not in the.

679
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 1: FBI, but he's a federal law enforcement officer, and he

680
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: told her that no matter how bad she wanted her

681
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: garage back, she could not give Moller hid guns back.

682
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:06,320
Speaker 1: Now that she knows that he's a convicted felon, it

683
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 1: would be a felony for her to knowingly facilitate the

684
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 1: transfer of a firearm back into his possession.

685
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 2: So she's kind of stuck.

686
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: Connie did testify at the trial, so I have her

687
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 1: own sworn statements to go on. Her brother, Adam wasn't

688
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 1: called as a witness, so I just have the secondhand

689
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: report from the ATF here. But apparently he'd gotten a

690
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: bad vibe off his wife's new stepdad years earlier in

691
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: their relationship. Again, Adam and Kara are adults, married adults.

692
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:45,760
Speaker 1: When Kara's mother marries Robert Maller, and so here's this man.

693
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: You know, his wife's mom has a new boyfriend. This

694
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 1: isn't a guy, you know, This isn't a guy you

695
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: hang out with a lot. But he's getting a weird

696
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: vibe off of him, and Moller keeps asking Adam, do

697
00:46:56,960 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: you want to go shooting together? Do you want to

698
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 1: go shooting together? And Adam did not want to, and

699
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,719
Speaker 1: he wanted to even less after he looked this man

700
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 1: up and found out that he was a convicted felon.

701
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 1: And so at this point all he knows is that

702
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: Moller has asked him to go shooting. He has not

703
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 1: personally witnessed his wife's new stepdad in possession of a firearm,

704
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: so the tip he submitted to the ATF didn't really

705
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: go anywhere. Adam also wrote an anonymous letter to the

706
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 1: National Rifle Association just letting them know that one of

707
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 1: their certified firearms instructors was a convicted felon, But it

708
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:36,800
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like anything came of that either.

709
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 2: So regardless of who knew what.

710
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: And when, in January of twenty sixteen, Connie called the ATF.

711
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: That much we know for sure. She called, and she

712
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:51,919
Speaker 1: reported it, and they sent an agent out to talk

713
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: to her. And when the ATF eventually searched Robert Maller's home.

714
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 1: He wasn't there, but his wife was. She told the

715
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 1: agents that she didn't think her husband owned any guns,

716
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:08,760
Speaker 1: but she did think that he had a concealed carry permit.

717
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: She also seemed surprised to learn that her husband had

718
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: been convicted of several felonies. He had told her a

719
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: version of the story where it was his ex wife, Nancy,

720
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 1: who had gotten into trouble for shipping those guns overseas.

721
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,879
Speaker 1: So as they're searching the house, an agent is talking

722
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: to Moller's wife outside, and the agents inside the house

723
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:35,520
Speaker 1: encountered two locked doors, and Maller's wife says she doesn't

724
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: have the keys to those, And what a red flag

725
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: that is. I can't imagine living with someone who distrusts

726
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:47,280
Speaker 1: me so profoundly that they keep their private, separate bedroom

727
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:52,800
Speaker 1: locked with a key that I don't have. When agents

728
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:56,280
Speaker 1: did get the door to Maller's bedroom open, they found

729
00:48:56,560 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: six guns in there. Under his pillow, there was a

730
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 1: forty five caliber pistol. It was not only loaded, but

731
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: there was a round in the chamber. I'm not a

732
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: huge gun guy, but if you're not a gun guy either,

733
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: that means the gun was very ready to fire. That

734
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 1: means you could just pull the trigger in a bullets

735
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: coming out. I just can't imagine laying my head on

736
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: a pillow and there is a chambered round an inch

737
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 1: from my brain. They found a few more guns in

738
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 1: various hiding spots around the room. There were rifles, shotguns, pistols,

739
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: a little bit of everything, and they were all loaded.

740
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 1: They also found two thousand bullets in his bedroom. In

741
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: addition to the gun under the pillow, they found another

742
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 1: forty five caliber pistol under his bed. And this gun

743
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: maybe the greatest mystery of this story. Those guns he

744
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: sent to South Africa weren't supposed to be there, but

745
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 1: I know how they got there. It wasn't legal, but

746
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 1: it's not a mystery. Nancy shipped from there a forty

747
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 1: foot cargo container. But this gun, this gun shouldn't have

748
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: been under Robert Maler's bed. And I don't mean just

749
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: because he couldn't legally own a gun. This gun couldn't

750
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:21,479
Speaker 1: be under there. There's no explanation for how it could

751
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 1: be there legally speaking. The last known location of that

752
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,799
Speaker 1: gun before ATF agents founded under Robert Maller's bed in

753
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen was in the custody of the Silverton, Oregon

754
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:40,600
Speaker 1: Police Department in May of two thousand and nine. In

755
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: May of two thousand and nine, the cleaning staff at

756
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,279
Speaker 1: a hotel in Los Angeles were stripping the sheets in

757
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:48,920
Speaker 1: an empty hotel room. The room's occupant checked out, but

758
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 1: he forgot something. He left his gun under the pillow.

759
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: The hotel staff called the Los Angeles Police Department to

760
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 1: come pick up the gun. Because Maller had booked the

761
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,520
Speaker 1: room using his credit card, they were able to determine

762
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: that he owned it, and rather than have him travel

763
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 1: all the way back to LA they transferred custody of

764
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 1: the firearm to the police department in Silverton, Oregon, where

765
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: he was living at the time. Court records contain only

766
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: a brief footnote that the Silverton Police Department had been

767
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 1: unable to locate any record that they'd ever received that

768
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: gun from the LAPD or released it back to Robert Maller,

769
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 1: but obviously they did. The LAPD had records showing that

770
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 1: they released the gun to the Silverton, Oregon Police Department.

771
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: They sent Robert Moller a letter telling him that's what

772
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 1: they'd done, and the letter was in his house. There

773
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: are records that this happened, but neither one of those

774
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,439
Speaker 1: police departments had that gun, because that gun was under

775
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: Robert Maler's bed. So one of these police departments isn't

776
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,760
Speaker 1: telling the truth. One of them gave a convicted felon

777
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: his gun back willfully were because they cut corners and

778
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: they didn't do the required paperwork and they didn't notice

779
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 1: he wasn't supposed to have it in the first place.

780
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 1: The man who originally sold Robert Maller that gun, a

781
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 1: man named Curtis, testified at Maller's trial he still had

782
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 1: the bill of sale from the transaction and he held

783
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 1: onto it for nearly a decade. And on that bill

784
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:24,879
Speaker 1: of sale, Robert Maler had written down not his own name,

785
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: but he wrote Alex Maler, his brother's name. And Curtis

786
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,279
Speaker 1: was very cooperative throughout the investigation. He told agents that

787
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 1: he'd gone shooting with Maller several times. He was a

788
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 1: childhood friend of Moller's new adult step sons, so the

789
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: four of them hung out from time to time over

790
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 1: games of table tennis. Smaller would often brag about how

791
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: skilled he was with firearms.

792
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 2: One excerpt from an ATF report reads. He stated that

793
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:54,280
Speaker 2: he shot the cult.

794
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: Better than Maler did, and added that Moller was a

795
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: bad shot. Shots fired literally, and Curtis also told the

796
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:08,759
Speaker 1: agents that in addition to selling Maler that pistol, he'd

797
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: also purchased a rifle from Maller some years back. The

798
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,720
Speaker 1: two had had a falling out years before the arrest.

799
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:20,840
Speaker 1: Curtis recounted that after some disagreement, Maller had showed up

800
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 1: at his workplace and told him, quote, I'd hate for

801
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 1: something to happen to you where you wouldn't be able

802
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: to take care of your family. On the second day

803
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: of his trial, the prosecution rested their case before his

804
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:39,720
Speaker 1: defense attorney had a chance to present his case. Moller

805
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,359
Speaker 1: called it off. He didn't want to finish the trial.

806
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:46,880
Speaker 1: He wanted to plead guilty, and the state originally recommended

807
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: a sentence of more than six years, which is, honestly,

808
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:55,359
Speaker 1: you know, kind of reasonable given the guidelines, his prior history, etc.

809
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: But then Mahler petitioned to withdraw his plea, explaining that

810
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:04,320
Speaker 1: when he pled guilty, he only meant he was guilty

811
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: of possessing one gun. He hadn't understood that he was

812
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: pleading guilty to possessing all of the guns in the indictment,

813
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 1: and this apparently worked. In the end, everyone agreed that

814
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:23,280
Speaker 1: he shouldn't spend a day in jail. He was convicted

815
00:54:23,320 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: of possessing one firearm and he was given three years

816
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: of probation.

817
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: I really can't explain it.

818
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:35,280
Speaker 1: Not that I think jail would have benefited Robert Maler

819
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 1: or even society, but it is puzzling these days. Robert

820
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 1: Maler is just an old man. He loves table tennis,

821
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,799
Speaker 1: but his favorite hobby seems to be filing nuisance lawsuits

822
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 1: against people who say.

823
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:54,439
Speaker 2: No to him.

824
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, he filed a lawsuit against a hospital

825
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: he was asking for over a million dollars in damages

826
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 1: to compensate him for the immense emotional anguish caused by

827
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 1: their refusal to place him under general anesthesia immediately upon

828
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:14,719
Speaker 1: his arrival for a scheduled elective surgery. He claims that

829
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: the doctor agreed to this request ahead of time because

830
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 1: if he had to remain conscious, he would have an

831
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 1: episode of vasovagel syncope. That sounds very serious, doesn't it,

832
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: But it's just a fancy way of saying that he

833
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 1: would get stressed out and faint. Now I'm not a doctor,

834
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: but I don't think that's a thing. I don't think

835
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: you can have them put you under general anesthesia immediately

836
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 1: upon being admitted. You really want to minimize the amount

837
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:49,399
Speaker 1: of time that a person is under general anesthesia, right,

838
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 1: it's just for the surgery part. You don't get that

839
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,920
Speaker 1: going until they're about to operate. And there are a

840
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:58,760
Speaker 1: lot of important reasons why you don't just use general

841
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,160
Speaker 1: anesthesia to help someone calm down. But one reason why

842
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:06,920
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to preemptively administer general anesthesia is surgeries

843
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:11,360
Speaker 1: don't always happen on time, which is exactly what happened here.

844
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:15,400
Speaker 1: Mahler was booked for an elective surgery, but those often

845
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:18,280
Speaker 1: get pushed back when the OAR is needed for emergencies,

846
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: so he's forced to remain conscious for hours while inside

847
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:27,359
Speaker 1: of the hospital. He refused several offers of sedatives or

848
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 1: tranquilizers to alleviate his anxiety. He insisted that the only

849
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 1: acceptable solution was full general anesthesia from start to finish. Additionally,

850
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 1: he named as a defendant in his lawsuit the nursing

851
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: assistant who caused him to become too warm by placing

852
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 1: a blanket on his bed.

853
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 2: The suit was dismissed.

854
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:53,160
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, he filed a lawsuit against the state

855
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 1: of Oregon asking for one hundred and fifty five thousand

856
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:59,440
Speaker 1: dollars in damages because he felt he was not afforded

857
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:04,439
Speaker 1: adequate due process in fighting a traffic citation. That one

858
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: was also dismissed. There are a lot of these, truly,

859
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 1: it's kind of impressive. There are a lot of these.

860
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: There was a year's long ongoing feud between rival table

861
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: tennis clubs that got incredibly out of hand. His lawsuit

862
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: was eventually dismissed after he refused a very generous settlement

863
00:57:24,840 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 1: offer because it would have required him to stay away

864
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 1: from any future table tennis tournament organized by the rival club.

865
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:35,800
Speaker 1: They were willing to write him a three thousand dollars

866
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 1: check if it meant they could get his signature on

867
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:42,640
Speaker 1: a legal document promising not to come to their pingpong events,

868
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't back down, so he got nothing. There

869
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: is one lawsuit still pending right now, and this is

870
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 1: the first thing I ever read about Robert Maller after

871
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: I discovered his name in connection with the arms trafficking

872
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:02,080
Speaker 1: for Nazi terrorists in South Africa. So imagine that's all

873
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:05,400
Speaker 1: you know about a man that he smuggled hundreds of

874
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 1: guns into South Africa in nineteen ninety four were used

875
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 1: by people who wanted to start a race war, and

876
00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: the next fact you learn about him is this. He's

877
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 1: currently locked in a vicious legal battle with the owner

878
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 1: of an all you can eat sushi buffet in Portland, Oregon,

879
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: because the owner asked him not to let his twelve

880
00:58:25,680 --> 00:58:32,440
Speaker 1: year old Doberman, Juliette touch the spring rolls. Whether juliet

881
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: the twelve year old Doberman is a real service dog

882
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: is not for us to decide. Service dogs don't get

883
00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: certified or anything like that. There's no standard licensing process

884
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 1: or a governing body. But the law does require a

885
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: service dog to have a specialized training beyond that of

886
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:54,880
Speaker 1: a regular household pet, and that training has to be

887
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:58,480
Speaker 1: related to a specific task that they can perform related

888
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 1: to the handler's disability. You're probably familiar with a lot

889
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: of these types of tasks, right. A service dog might

890
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,680
Speaker 1: guide a visually impaired person around obstacles. They might detect

891
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 1: allergens in food or sniff out low blood sugar, or

892
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: predict seizures, or open a door, or provide deep pressure

893
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,440
Speaker 1: stimulation for some with a panic disorder. There are a

894
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 1: million tasks that a service dog can be trained to perform,

895
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 1: but there has to be training, and there has to

896
00:59:26,560 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 1: be a task, and that task has to be directly

897
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 1: related to the handler's disability. The law says that the

898
00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:36,960
Speaker 1: positive impact of the dog's presence has to go beyond

899
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 1: the handler's general comfort or well being. So it can't

900
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: just be I like to have the dog here, I

901
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: benefit from having the dog here. You have to be

902
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 1: able to say a specific task, and so far he

903
00:59:51,040 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 1: has declined to produce any evidence to the court if

904
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 1: the dog has any special training, led alone training to

905
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 1: carry out a particular task related to a disability. This

906
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: one's still being litigated, so legally speaking, there is dispute

907
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: here about the facts. Moller claims that he was braided,

908
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 1: that the owner screamed at him, and he was humiliated

909
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:14,919
Speaker 1: when the restaurant kicked him out because of his well

910
01:00:14,960 --> 01:00:19,120
Speaker 1: behaved service animal, and the restaurant owner has made a

911
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:22,280
Speaker 1: sworn statement that Moller has been a regular at her

912
01:00:22,320 --> 01:00:27,120
Speaker 1: buffet for six years and she's always let it slide

913
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: that his pet dog accompanies him into the restaurant because

914
01:00:32,680 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: in past visits, this dog, this elderly Doberman, just sits

915
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:40,400
Speaker 1: quietly under the table and doesn't bother anyone. On this

916
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 1: particular visit, though, the owner says that another customer complained

917
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 1: that they saw the dog rest her head on the

918
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: buffet so her face was very close to when possibly

919
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 1: touching the food. She says she simply asked him to

920
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:58,160
Speaker 1: keep his dog at the dining table, as he'd done

921
01:00:58,200 --> 01:01:02,440
Speaker 1: in past visits, and in her version of events, he

922
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 1: did leave the restaurant visibly upset, but not because she

923
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:11,040
Speaker 1: screamed at him. After that interaction, he'd gotten into a

924
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:17,240
Speaker 1: verbal altercation with several other customers. At seventy five years old,

925
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 1: I do think Robert Mahler's arms dealing days are long gone.

926
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 1: I do have a feeling that he will not be

927
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 1: recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars from the sushi buffet,

928
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:47,400
Speaker 1: But I'll keep an eye on both. Were Little Guys

929
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: as a production of Coolzie Media and iHeartRadio. It's research

930
01:01:50,200 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 1: written and recorded by me, Molly Hunger. Our executive producers

931
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:56,680
Speaker 1: are Sophie Lichtermann and Robert Evans. The show is edited

932
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 1: by the wildly talented Lory Gigan. The theme music was

933
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:02,720
Speaker 1: composed by You can email me at Weird Little Guys

934
01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:05,160
Speaker 1: podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely read it,

935
01:02:05,160 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 1: but I probably won't answer it. It's nothing personal. You

936
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 1: can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other listeners

937
01:02:10,800 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 1: on the Weird Little Guys Supreddit. Just don't post anything

938
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: that's going to make you one of my Weird Little

939
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: Guys