Camp Pendleton Marine Who Made, Sold 'Ghost' Guns Sentenced to Prison

Over a two-month period last year, a Marine master corporal stationed at Camp Pendleton sold 22 unregistered “ghost” rifles, most with illegally short barrels, to an undercover federal agent for $23,300.

At Christian Ferrari's sentencing Monday morning in federal court in San Diego, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant asked the former Marine what he thought the unserialized, hard-to-track rifles would be used for, especially since he was selling them to strangers for cash in parking lots across San Diego County.

“Sometimes I don’t think that far ahead, your honor,” Ferrari, a 23-year-old El Cajon resident, told the judge.

Judge Bashant sentenced Ferrari to three years and one month in federal prison, plus three years of supervised release. The judge told the defendant, who pleaded guilty in January to four counts of trafficking firearms without a license, that he had created a “tremendous danger” and was fortunate that the AR-15-style rifles he sold were not used to kill anyone.

“I’m sorry you didn’t think through the consequences, but they were disastrous,” Bashant told Ferrari, adding that he should have assumed the weapons would be used for nefarious purposes because of the nature of the guns themselves and the way the transactions were conducted. “… You made an impulsive and stupid decision.”

Ferrari and his attorney told the judge that he regretted his actions and knew what he did was wrong. “I realize how stupid it was,” Ferrari said. His attorney argued in sentencing documents that Ferrari’s actions were largely motivated by untreated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, which causes inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Camp Pendleton officials said last year that Ferrari enlisted in the Marine Corps in January 2020 and at the time of his arrest was a rifleman in the 1st Marine Regiment, an infantry regiment that is part of the 1st Marine Division.

Ferrari told the court Monday that he is no longer in the Marine Corps. Navy officials did not immediately respond to questions about Ferrari's discharge.

Federal agents arrested Ferrari in May 2023, moments after he sold 10 short-barreled shotguns to undercover agents in a parking lot off Murphy Canyon Road. In three previous meetings before that final sale, Ferrari had sold the agents 12 other AR-15-style rifles, including 10 short-barreled shotguns.

Prosecutors said Ferrari came to the attention of law enforcement during an investigation by the Riverside County Sheriff's Office, which learned from a confidential informant that Ferrari was a Camp Pendleton Marine involved in manufacturing and selling firearms without serial numbers. Sheriff's investigators forwarded the information to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, telling ATF agents that Ferrari expected a call from a potential buyer.

In the third sale, undercover ATF agents told Ferrari that the guns they were buying would be shipped to Northern California to protect illegal marijuana grow operations. During the same conversation, one agent said he wanted 10 more guns for an associate in Mexico. Those statements did not deter Ferrari, prosecutors said.

“Ferrari had overwhelming evidence that the (privately manufactured) firearms he manufactured and sold were likely purchased and used by criminals, and that the firearms were likely to leave the United States for Mexico,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Shital Thakkar wrote in sentencing documents. “As a Marine, he was supposed to serve this country, not make it … or any other country … more dangerous by illegally manufacturing and trafficking ghost guns.”

Thakkar wrote in sentencing documents and told the court Monday that there was evidence Ferrari made the guns in his father’s Lakeside home and that he sold ghost guns to other buyers. Prosecutors have not charged Ferrari in the other suspected sales.