COXSACKIE, NY — A quiet, studious man who lived in Brooklyn, was actually the builder and owner of a treasure trove of ghost guns. He says it was a hobby and he wasn’t hurting anyone. He said he was well within his rights to possess the unregistered weapons without a permit.
Video shows a close-up of the intense raid that ended in his arrest.
Recently, Maurice Dubois of CBS News New York had a conversation with Dexter Taylor in his maximum security prison.
Dexter Taylor’s arrest in 2022
Using a search warrant, members of an elite NYPD unit entered Taylor’s home in Bushwick on April 6, 2022. What followed was an hours-long search for his packed house, which was found loaded with ghost guns.
Taylor said he was in bed around 6 a.m. when, “I hear a bang … and the voices get louder.”
He added: “I see under the crack of my door, I see gun lights flickering back. So I said, ‘Hi, hi, hi, I’m Dexter Taylor. Why are you looking for me?’ Because I still thought they had the wrong house. Then they said, ‘Yes, we are here for you.'”
After a week-long trial earlier this year, Taylor, 53, was convicted of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and other charges and sentenced to 10 years for making ghost guns.
CBS News New York
Dubois met him at the Coxsackie Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in upstate New York.
Taylor said he had 13 guns in his home.
“They were all pistols or AR-style rifles. I made, I don’t know, a handful of Glock-style pistols, and I want to say eight AR-style rifles,” Taylor said.
Dubois said he saw photos of the weapons hanging in a closet like his suits. Taylor confirmed this.
“I still have a license. It’s called the Second Amendment”
Taylor is a self-proclaimed nerd and tinkerer. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School, studied biomedical engineering for a while at Johns Hopkins University, and later taught himself to write code. He added that he has been fascinated by guns since childhood.
He said he knows how he got on the police radar.
“ATF has been serving search warrants all over the country by, you know, going to parts manufacturers and saying, ‘Make those lists for me,’” Taylor said.
He was under surveillance and marked with his own credit card and home address to order parts for building weapons. The weapons and parts were unlicensed, unregistered and illegal in New York.
CBS News New York
General, More than a thousand illegal ghost guns have been recovered since 2022, according to the NYPD.
Dubois asked if he has a permit to carry a gun in New York City, to which Taylor replied, “I still have a permit. It’s called the Second Amendment.”
Dubois asked if his weapons were registered.
“No such registration is required,” Taylor said. “In other words, I know what you’re getting at, but you see what I’m getting at, which, wait a minute, is that the law of the land takes precedence over the law of the state.”
Dubois asked if his guns had serial numbers? Taylor said no.
Taylor’s lawyer: He didn’t hurt anyone
“So to the people who say, ‘Come on, man, you know New York State law. You also know the constitution. You know them both, but the law is the law and you pay the consequences. What do you say to people who ask you that question?”
“The states may make their own laws, but none of those laws can conflict with the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights,” Taylor said.
N.Y.P.D
Vinoo Varghese is Taylor’s lawyer.
“He didn’t fire them. He never took them out of his house,” Varghese said. “There is nothing more important to the Second Amendment than the individual right to bear arms in his own home.
“That’s the ultimate legal question that will go to federal court. We fully knew we were going to lose in state court. We would lose at the mid-level appeals court. We’re going to lose that in Albany. , in upstate New York, but then we come right back to Brooklyn for the federal court there,” Varghese added.
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College.
“The Second Amendment allows for the right to bear arms, but that is not an unlimited, unrestricted right. The right to bear arms, like every right under the Constitution, must be balanced, balanced with public safety, balanced with the rights of others,” Browne-Marshall said.
Taylor has a 16-year-old daughter. He said missing her is one of the hardest parts of being locked up and claims she is proud of his fight.
“We watched the bodycam video. It was very quiet, we untied the shoelaces and put your glasses on your face,” Dubois said.
“Everyone was calm and respectful, and I played it calm and respectful as well,” Taylor said.
“People convicted of manslaughter, people convicted of abusing children, are more likely to be released than Dexter Taylor, who didn’t harm anyone,” Varghese said.
This is what Taylor hopes to achieve
Dubois asked Taylor what he ultimately wants.
“We hope we can force New York State to comply with the law. Again, the law of the land is clear. I would like to have my conviction overturned and do what I originally planned to do, which was buy some land in New York. Hampshire somewhere, and set up a weapons lab and start my second career in the firearms industry,” Taylor said.
It has been reported that Taylor spent as much as $40,000 buying parts to assemble the weapons. Although 3D printers were seized, Taylor said he did not need them to make his weapons, but rather assembled parts that he modified by hand.
His attorney said Taylor specifically instructed him not to take a plea deal. He says he could have been free with one year, instead of receiving the maximum 10-year prison sentence.
Taylor said it’s worth the fight.
