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Feds charge Shoreline man after arsenal, ‘ghost guns’ found in car and room at Seattle hotel

By Mike Carter Seattle Times

A Shoreline man has been charged in federal court with two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm after an incident at a downtown Seattle luxury hotel where officers found an arsenal of firearms, including two so-called “ghost guns” without a serial number.

Rustam Yusupov was taken into federal custody Wednesday and appeared Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson, who ordered him held after federal prosecutors argued Yusupov posed a “clear threat to the public” after finding he was in possession of semi-automatic weapons, precision sniper rifles, handguns and ammunition, including armor-piercing and hollow-point rounds.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Yusupov was released from a hospital following a mental evaluation last month after Seattle police mistakenly failed to arrest him for the felony crime of possessing firearms in violation of a domestic-violence protective order issued in May 2021.

According to state court documents, Yusupov was supposed to have turned over all of his firearms to law enforcement as a result of threats he made against his partner.

The federal charges stem from an incident on March 10 at the Seattle Westin Hotel, where Seattle police officers responded to the 29th floor after a 911 call reporting that a man was “tearing up [the] room.” The officers found Yusupov in what appeared to be a “state of crisis or intoxication,” and reported he had blocked the door with a mattress and that the room was in disarray.

Hotel employees said Yusupov had checked in earlier that evening and had called down to the front desk twice, once to report an “unknown person” in his room and another time to say there was an “unknown child in his bed.” The federal complaint quoted a person identified by the initial “M.H.” as having been with Yusupov earlier that evening and found him to be ” ‘twitchy’ and not observing personal space.”

Once in the room, officers reported that Yusupov was “sweating profusely and was extremely restless,” but otherwise was cooperative. He repeatedly told officers there was a child in his room — at one point he asked, “Did you see that shadow?” — although officers found nobody, according to the complaint filed by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

An initial search of the room turned up a Polymer80 9-mm handgun, a privately manufactured “ghost gun” without a serial number. Yusupov told officers he was a competitive shooter and had been involved in “some kind of ‘psychological warfare’ during past military service,” the complaint says.

Yusupov told the officers he hadn’t slept in three days and had checked into the hotel because he kept hearing children in the walls and walking on the ceiling of his residence, according to the charges.

According to testimony at Thursday’s hearing, a subsequent search of his Shoreline apartment turned up two inert hand grenades, shipping containers for mortars, silencers, a ballistic vest, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Woods told the court that the apartment was splattered throughout with blood. Emily Langlie, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle, said an investigation is ongoing and no other details were available.

At the hotel, officers sent Yusupov by ambulance to Swedish Medical Center where a footnote in the complaint states he was “briefly seen by staff and released after a short interview.”

During a second search of the hotel room, officers located a .22-caliber derringer under a couch cushion, the charges said.

According to the complaint, the officers had cleared the call and were driving out of the Westin parking lot when they were flagged down by a valet, who directed them to Yusupov’s 2011 Land Rover. The valet said he had parked the car earlier and saw guns.

Inside the vehicle, the officers found several “tactical style backpacks” containing firearms and ammunition. A number of the weapons had been modified with “aftermarket upgrades,” including high-end optics. The weapons included an FMK AR-1 rifle; an Aero Precision X15 rifle; a Ruger Model 5.7 handgun; a Ruger Model 18029 6.5mm Creedmoor precision rifle; and a “skeletonized AR15” ghost gun without a serial number.

The Biden administration recently introduced a regulation aimed at reining in the proliferation of ghost guns, which have been turning up at crime scenes across the nation in increasing numbers. It changes the definition of a firearm and will require federal firearms dealers to add serial numbers to ghost guns that come their way.