New York City man convicted of possessing ghost guns maintains he had every right to have them
COXSACKIE, N.Y. -- A quiet, studious man living in Brooklyn was actually the builder and owner of a trove of ghost guns. He says it was a hobby and that he was hurting no one. He said he was well within his rights to possess the unregistered, unlicensed weapons.
Video shows an up-close look at the intense raid that ended in his arrest.
Recently, CBS News New York's Maurice Dubois had a conversation with Dexter Taylor at his maximum security prison.
The 2022 arrest of Dexter Taylor
With a search warrant, members of an elite NYPD unit forced their way into Taylor's Bushwick residence on April 6, 2022. What followed was an hours-long search of his packed home, which was found loaded with ghost guns.
Taylor said he was laying in bed at around 6 a.m. when, "I hear a bang ... and the voices get louder."
He added, "I see underneath the crack of my door, I see like weapon lights flicking backwards. So I said, 'Hello, hello, hello, I'm Dexter Taylor. Why you looking for me?' Because I still thought they had the wrong house. Then they said, 'Yeah, we're 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.
Dubois met with him at Coxsackie Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in upstate New York.
Taylor said in his home he had 13 guns.
"All of them were either pistols or AR-style rifles. I made, like, 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 pictures of the guns hanging in a closet like his suits. Taylor confirmed as much.
"I still do have a license. It's called the Second Amendment"
Taylor is a self-described nerd and tinkerer. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School, studied biomedical engineering for a time at Johns Hopkins University, and later taught himself how to write code. He added he has been fascinated with guns since he was a child.
He said he knows how he got on law enforcement's radar.
"ATF has been driving search warrants around the country by, you know, going up to parts manufacturers and saying, 'Run those lists for me,'" Taylor said.
- Read more: Grieving mother sues ghost gun kit maker Polymer80 for fatal shooting of daughter in the Bronx
He had been under surveillance, flagged using his own credit card and home address ordering parts to build weapons. The guns and parts were unlicensed, unregistered, and illegal in New York.
Overall, the NYPD says more than 1,000 illegal ghost guns have been recovered since 2022.
Dubois asked if he has a license to carry a gun in New York City, to which Taylor responded, "I still do have a license. 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 is that is, wait a minute, is that the law of the land supersedes the law of the state."
Dubois asked if his guns had serial numbers? Taylor said no.
Taylor's attorney: He hasn't harmed anyone
"So to the people who say, 'Come on, man, you know the law of New York state. You also know the Constitution. You know both of them, but the law is the law, and you're paying the consequences. What do you say to people who ask you that question?"
"The states get to make their own laws, but none of those laws can contravene the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights," Taylor said.
Vinoo Varghese is Taylor's attorney.
"He didn't fire them. He never took them out of his house," Varghese said. "There's nothing more central to the Second Amendment than the individual right to bear arms in his own home.
"That is the ultimate legal question that's going to go to federal court. We fully, we knew we're gonna lose the state court. We're gonna lose at the mid-level appellate court. We're gonna lose that in Albany, in New York state, but then we're gonna come right back to Brooklyn in federal court there," Varghese added.
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is a constitutional law professor 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 within the Constitution, has to be balanced out, balanced out with public safety, balanced out 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 about being locked up and claims she is proud of his fight.
"We watched the body-cam video. It ended up very calm, undoing the shoelaces, put your glasses on your face," Dubois said.
"Everyone was calm and respectful, and I played it calmly and respectfully as well," Taylor said.
"People that have been convicted of manslaughter, people that have been convicted of molesting children, are going to get out earlier than Dexter Taylor, who hasn't harmed anyone," Varghese said.
Here's what Taylor hopes to achieve
Dubois asked Taylor what he ultimately wants.
"We hope that we can compel New York state to abide by the law. Again, the law of the land is clear. I'd like to have my conviction reversed and do what I originally planned, which was to buy some land in New Hampshire somewhere, and make a gun lab and go 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 3-D printers were confiscated, Taylor said he did not need them to make his guns, instead assembling parts that he modified by hand.
His lawyer said that Taylor specifically instructed him not to make a plea deal. He says with one, he could have been out in less than four years, rather than getting the maximum of 10 years in jail.
Taylor said it's worth the fight.
