Driver at California protest agrees to admit gun violations

<p>LOS ANGELES &mdash; A California man who drove a pickup truck through a crowd protesting the death of George Floyd last year has agreed to plead guilty to federal firearms offenses, the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday.</p>
<p>No one was hurt in the incident at an intersection in Pasadena but the case involves an illegally obtained gun that Benjamin Jong Ren Hung, 28, brought with him to counterprotest, a prosecution press release said.</p>
<p>Hung, a San Marino resident who also has a home in Lodi, entered into a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court along with a superseding indictment, the release said. </p>
<p>The 11 felonies include conspiracy, transporting and receiving firearms across state lines, making false statements during purchases of firearms, and possession of unregistered firearms.</p>
<p>According to prosecutors, Hung acknowledged participating in a multiyear conspiracy to make false statements to firearms dealers in Oregon and to illegally transport the firearms to California, evading registration laws. He gave cash to a co-conspirator in Oregon to buy handguns for him and to falsely state that the co-conspirator was the buyer. The co-conspirator then delivered the guns to Hung in California. </p>
<p>Prosecutors said Hung also admitted falsely attesting to firearms dealers in Washington that he was a resident of that state in order to buy four rifles and a shotgun in March 2020, and also to illegally taking the guns to California.</p>
<p>He also acknowledged possessing three unregistered short-barreled semiautomatic rifles that were seized from his Lodi home in September 2020.</p>
<p>In the Pasadena incident, Hung admitting bringing one of the illegally obtained guns when he accelerated a pickup truck with vanity license plates reading “WAR R1G” toward the intersection where the protesters were gathered. He sounded a train horn installed on the truck, stopped and then continued through the intersection, causing the truck to produce excessive exhaust in a technique called “coal rolling.” </p>
<p>An FBI agent’s affidavit filed last year described Hung’s truck as being “adorned with flags associated with right-wing extremist groups.”</p>
<p>Pasadena police detained Hung and then the FBI took over the investigation.</p>