Good morning. (Here’s the sign-up, if you don’t already get California Today by email.) My colleague Tim Arango followed up on the massive cache of guns pulled over the course of hours from a multimillion dollar house in Los Angeles. Here’s his dispatch: It reads like the plotline from an L.A. noir novel: A sprawling house in Bel-Air, close to the Playboy Mansion. An early morning raid. Stacks of bullets and guns of every sort. And a tantalizing connection to a wealthy and famous family. In the early morning darkness on Wednesday, Los Angeles police detectives and federal agents, working on an anonymous tip, moved on the mansion in the affluent Bel-Air neighborhood. “Lo and behold, they found over a thousand guns of all makes, models and calibers,” said Lt. Chris Ramirez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, who was at the scene on Wednesday, after officers had spent hours cataloging the cache of weapons. There was seemingly every kind of gun — shotguns, pistols, assault rifles, even Civil War-era weapons — along with over a thousand rounds of ammunition, he said. “They were found just laid out in various rooms in the house,” he said. “There were piles of ammunition on one side of a room. There were piles of guns on the other side of a room.”<doc-sep>Today’s Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy<doc-sep>Advertisement Suspect bails out after 1,000 guns seized from LA mansion Share Shares Copy Link Copy A 57-year-old man was released Thursday on bond a day after his arrest during a law enforcement raid on a Los Angeles mansion that uncovered more than 1,000 guns, according to jail records.Girard Saenz was arrested on suspicion of unlawful transportation and of giving, lending or selling an assault weapon, the Los Angeles Times reported. It wasn't known if Saenz has an attorney, and a message left at a number for him was not returned.He was released after paying a $50,000 bond, records show.Acting on a tip regarding illegal firearms sales, police and federal agents served a search warrant before dawn Wednesday at the home valued at millions of dollars in the posh Bel Air neighborhood.Guns were strewn throughout several of the home's rooms, authorities said. It took about 30 law enforcement personnel more than 12 hours to remove all the weapons, authorities said.Photos and video from the scene showed stacks of rifles, shotguns, assault weapons and pistols laid out in the driveway. Others showed a floor stacked with boxes of ammunition.The weapons will be itemized and booked into evidence, police Lt. Chris Ramirez said. "I had never seen so many weapons in my career of 31 years," Ramirez said. "That's such a big arsenal in a residence like this, in this type of neighborhood. It's astounding. "The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a statement that authorities received a tip about a person "conducting illegal firearms transaction outside the scope of the federal firearm license" that the person possessed.Saenz is a longtime companion of real estate mogul Cynthia Beck, who owns the property and many others in California, according to records cited by the Times.Beck has three daughters with J. Paul Getty's son Gordon Getty, the newspaper said. Beck bought the house in January 2001, but it remains unclear what, if any, connection she has to Wednesday's events.It is unclear whether Beck lives at the home where the weapons were found. She could not be reached for comment.Saenz has been a licensed general building contractor since 1994 and operates a business in San Diego called Gerry Saenz and Associates, according to public records.Saenz was arrested in Malibu at a home on suspicion of brandishing a firearm in 2017, but the matter was not considered for charges after the alleged victims told deputies they did not want to pursue it, a sheriff's spokesman told the Times. Saenz was released within a few hours of being detained.<doc-sep>A 57-year-old man identified in court records as the longtime companion of Los Angeles real estate mogul Cynthia Beck was behind bars for several hours overnight after police seized more than 1,000 guns — including some that authorities allege were fully automatic — from a home in Bel-Air. When investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Los Angeles Police Department arrived at the five-bedroom estate in the 100 block of North Beverly Glen Boulevard about 4 a.m. Wednesday, they were met with an unusual situation: The sprawling Bel-Air mansion, just down the street from a plethora of celebrity homes, was in complete disarray. For the record: An earlier version of this report misspelled Girard Saenz’s last name as Sainz. Authorities described the property as a hoarder’s paradise, with guns strewn throughout several of the home’s rooms. It took about 30 law enforcement personnel more than 12 hours to remove all the weapons, which included rifles, shotguns, assault weapons and pistols, authorities said. Girard Saenz, who was in the home at the time, was arrested on suspicion of violating California’s law regarding assault weapons and .50-caliber Browning machine guns. The law prohibits the manufacture, distribution, transportation, importation and sale of any assault rifle or .50-caliber weapon, except in specific circumstances. Advertisement The guns, which authorities say Saenz was selling, were laid in stacks atop blankets on the property’s winding driveway for officials to catalog. Eventually, the stockpile was loaded into the back of a large box truck and driven off the property. The weapons will be itemized and booked into evidence, said Lt. Chris Ramirez, an LAPD spokesman. “This is a big stash,” Ramirez told reporters at the scene. “It’s beyond comprehension that somebody can have so many weapons in a residence like this, in a neighborhood like this.” Authorities launched the investigation into the cache after they received an anonymous tip about a person manufacturing and selling guns at the Bel-Air home. The ATF said in a statement that its agents searched the house after discovering Saenz was illegally selling firearms outside the scope of the federal license he possesses. Law enforcement has not specified how any weapon sales were conducted. Saenz was released from custody shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday after posting $50,000 bond. He could not be reached for comment. 1 / 8 Authorities seized more than a thousand guns from a Holmby Hills home after getting an anonymous tip regarding illegal firearms sales in a posh area near the Playboy Mansion. They served a search warrant around 4 a.m. Wednesday. (KCBC/KCAL) 2 / 8 Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the police inspect a large cache of weapons seized at a home in the affluent Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles Wednesday, May 8, 2019. (KCBC/KCAL ) 3 / 8 A member of the media takes video of a home at 111 N. Beverly Glen Blvd., where the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seized approximately 1,000 guns. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 8 This photo provided by the Los Angeles Police Department shows part of a large cache of weapons seized at a home in the affluent Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Police Department ) 5 / 8 Authorities seized more than a thousand guns from a Holmby Hills home. (Los Angeles Police Department ) 6 / 8 Gun parts and ammunition are part of a large cache of weapons seized at a home in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles Wednesday. (Los Angeles Police Department ) 7 / 8 The LAPD confiscated numerous weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition from this home on Beverly Glen Boulevard in Holmby Hills. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 8 An unmarked police vehicle carrying the suspect drives away from the Holmby Hills home. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Public records show the Bel-Air property is owned by Cynthia Beck, who has three daughters with J. Paul Getty’s son Gordon Getty. Beck bought the house in January 2001, but it remains unclear what, if any, connection she has to Wednesday’s events. Beck grabbed headlines in 1999 when news surfaced that Getty, who was married and had four grown sons, was the father of her three young daughters. In more recent years, Beck has accumulated a trove of properties in Los Angeles and San Francisco, some of which she owns with Saenz, according to public records. Advertisement It is unclear whether Beck lives at the home where the weapons were found. She could not be reached for comment Thursday. Saenz has been a licensed general building contractor since 1994 and operates a business that he started in the early 1990s in San Diego called Gerry Saenz and Associates, according to public records. Archives from a newspaper in Coronado from 1993 note that the business specialized in architectural environmental lighting and landscape design. Saenz’s current business address is a property on North Bunker Hill Avenue in Los Angeles, which he owns with Beck. The home was one of several locations searched by authorities Wednesday, law enforcement sources not authorized to speak publicly told The Times. Saenz was arrested in Malibu at a home on suspicion of brandishing a firearm in September 2017, but the matter was not considered for charges after the alleged victims told deputies they did not want to pursue the matter, according to a sheriff’s spokesman. Saenz was released within a few hours of being detained. Advertisement Public records indicate Saenz lived in the San Diego area with his ex-wife in the early 1990s and eventually moved to Los Angeles. Neighbors say the home where Saenz was arrested is normally quiet. “I was talking to my neighbors. Nobody knows who he is,” said resident Nicole DiGiorgio, a Queens, N.Y., native who was among the few people walking through the neighborhood, which lacks sidewalks but features gated driveways and sprawling lawns. “I walk up and down here all the time. I never see anyone come in or out.”<doc-sep>
When authorities raided a Bel-Air mansion this week, they had no idea about the cache of firearms they would find. Over the course of several hours, they removed more than 1,000 weapons in one of the largest seizures of its kind in Los Angeles. Girard Saenz, 57, was arrested on suspicion of violating California’s law regarding assault weapons and .50-caliber Browning machine guns. The law prohibits the manufacture, distribution, transportation, importation and sale of such firearms, except in specific circumstances. He was released from jail Thursday morning after posting $50,000 bond, according to jail records. Here is what we know: Who is Girard Saenz? A law enforcement source not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that Saenz was selling guns and that some of the weapons may have been fully automatic, which are illegal in California. Officials received a tip about a person illegally manufacturing and selling guns in a home in the 100 block of North Beverly Glen Boulevard, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Court records show the property is owned by Cynthia Beck, who has three daughters with J. Paul Getty’s son Gordon Getty and who is a longtime companion of Saenz’s. A source told The Times that a few of the items seized at the Bel-Air mansion were military-grade weapons. Beck bought the property in January 2001, but it remains unclear what, if any, connection she has to Wednesday’s events. She could not be reached for comment after the raid. Public records show that Saenz has been a licensed general building contractor since 1994 and operates a business called Gerry Saenz and Associates. The business address is a home on North Bunker Hill Avenue in Los Angeles that he owns with Beck. That property was also searched by authorities Wednesday, law enforcement sources told The Times. Public records show Beck and Saenz together own several pieces of property in Los Angeles and an office building in San Francisco. Neither Saenz nor his attorney could be reached for comment Thursday. What sparked the raid? Police launched an investigation after receiving an anonymous tip about someone selling guns at the home, said Officer Mike Lopez, an LAPD spokesman. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a statement that its agents searched the Bel-Air home after discovering an individual was illegally selling firearms outside the scope of the federal license the person possesses. Video of the raid shows what appear to be ATF officials reviewing the trove of guns stacked on the ground, examining boxes and taking photographs of evidence. Authorities said they also found a large amount of firearm-manufacturing equipment and tools. “This is a big stash,” Lt. Chris Ramirez, an LAPD spokesman, told reporters at the scene. “It’s beyond comprehension that somebody can have so many weapons in a residence like this, in a neighborhood like this.” What do legal experts say? Steve Cooley, a former Los Angeles County district attorney, said the number of firearms Saenz is accused of having is not the problem. “There is nothing in itself wrong with having a thousand guns. It all depends on whether they comply with California and federal laws,” he cautioned, noting that even with a federal firearms license to sell weapons, the legal aspects of doing so are very complex. Chuck Michel, a well-known gun rights attorney, said that having 1,000 guns isn’t that unusual for a federal firearms dealer. He said dealers often keep their own private collections and then separately keep an inventory of weapons in stock for the business. As a federally licensed weapons dealer, a person can sell guns elsewhere that are not compliant with California’s assault rifle laws. The state, however, requires dealers to have a dangerous weapons permit, Michel said. Sometimes, he said, dealers can overlook the correct paperwork and run afoul of the law, noting that sensational search warrants with piles of guns often end up without charges.