BAY CITY, MI — An Iosco County man accused of making illegal guns silencers and selling them around the country to the tune of $1 million has pleaded guilty to a felony in federal court.
Following the lead of his two out-of-state codefendants, Christopher J. Ridenour, 55, on Monday, May 9, appeared before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Patricia T. Morris and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and deal in silencers. The charge is punishable by up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.
The plea document states Ridenour from 2017 to December 2020 made and sold silencer kits and components without the required Federal Firearms License. He did this under a business named Diversified Machine, located in a pole barn at his National City home.
“Diversified Machine was a full-blown silencer manufacturing operation in Ridenour’s pole barn, involving thousands of silencer components including cylinders, baffles, spacers, monocores, endcaps and muzzle breaks,” the plea agreement states.
Ridenour advertised his silencer kits on a business website he operated. The document states codefendant Cullen Swanson assisted Ridenour by testing the silencers and modifying their parts to lower their decibel levels. Swanson also created videos of his activities, posting some on YouTube, the plea document states.
On June 9, 2018, Ridenour texted Swanson to tell him some of the modified components were “fantastic,” the document states.
Fellow codefendant Nick Logan served as Diversified Machine’s customer support, receiving emails from customers, the document states. Ridenour and Logan referred to their kits as “solvent traps” to hopefully avoid law enforcement’s detection, the document states.
“Diversified Machine business was an online business only; Ridenour shipped silencer kits and parts to customers nationwide,” the agreement states.
Logan and Swanson pleaded guilty to the same charge in March and April, respectively. Logan is from Illinois while Swanson resides in Oklahoma.
The trio were indicted by a grand jury in January. The indictment states Ridenour received more than $1.01 million from the online sale of silencer kits.
U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington is to sentence Ridenour at 2 p.m. on Sept. 22. Prior to that, Ludington is to sentence Logan at 2 p.m. on Aug. 4 and Swanson at 2 p.m. on Aug. 25.
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