A lengthy and “technically complicated” trial was avoided Wednesday after the Crown and defence on a firearms case agreed to a plea deal that will send a Harbour Grace man to federal prison.
John Byrne, 52, was scheduled for a nine-day trial at Supreme Court in St. John’s this week but instead pleaded guilty to a fraction of the charges against him.
Byrne was originally facing more than 120 charges related to a search of a home in Harbour Grace in June 2023 that police at the time characterized as an operation that was making 3D-printed guns for sale.
He pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to 20 offences related to that police bust, including multiple counts of possessing a firearm while prohibited and single counts of manufacturing a firearm and possessing a loaded prohibited firearm.
The investigation into Byrne began in May 2023 after the Canada Border Services Agency intercepted a package from the U.S. and addressed to Byrne at a home on LeMarchant Street in Harbour Grace.
According to an RCMP news release from the time, police subsequently searched the home where the package was addressed and discovered a cache of weapons, including 16 long guns, 33 handguns, 27 3D-printed firearms in various stages of assembly, a 3D printer, prohibited weapons and 3D-printed magazines and ammunition.
They also seized SD cards containing codes with file instructions on how to manufacture firearms and parts.
Byrne was already under a firearms prohibition from a court in Lindsay, Ont., from 1995.
Crown prosecutor Amber Haighway told the court that Byrne has “served significant periods of incarceration in terms of firearm offences and weapons prohibition” since the 1990s. However, his last firearms-related conviction was more than 20 years ago.
In pleading guilty, Byrne acknowledged a number of the firearms, parts and 3D printer were all owned, used and possessed solely by him.
His co-accused Crystal Chislett, 44, had all charges against her dismissed.
Byrne also pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight charges that were laid more than a year after the first police operation, when he was on bail.
In August 2024, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) alerted the Mounties to activity happening at the house where Byrne was residing.
The RNC had another man, Brandon Chafe, under surveillance and watched as he drove from Torbay to Harbour Grace, visited the house were Byrne was staying and left with an over-the-shoulder bag.
According to an agreed statement of fact, the police tried to intercept Chafe’s car but it wasn’t safe to do so. They later found it ditched behind a business in the metro area with the shoulder bag filled with ammunition inside.
That gave the RCMP enough evidence to warrant a second search of Byrne’s home.
This time, the police found 10 handguns, firearm parts, soft body armour and a large quantity of ammunition and ammunition making components.
“At the time of the warrant execution Mr. Byrne was observed in the living room area of the residence where police found a large quantity of ammunition, some of which was in the process of being made,” read the agreed statement of fact.
“Police seized casings (some of which were filled with gun powder), gun powder, primers and projectiles as well as the necessary tools to make the bullet with those components.”
Police were able to match items seized from Byrne with ammunition taken from an RNC crime scene in Torbay earlier that same day.
In reaching an agreement and joint submission of a seven-year sentence — three years for the first offence and four years for the second — lawyers for both sides said there was consideration over hurdles the Crown would have faced at trial.
“Identity was going to be a key concern here,” said Haighway.
“As well as the fact that Mr. Byrne was not physically in the house when the warrant was executed on the first file.”
The guilty pleas also saved the court — already under strain — multiple weeks of trial time both this month and in December.
Defence lawyer Taylor Starrett said the Crown would have been challenged to prove some of the charges including whether or not some of what police classified as a weapon actually constitutes a firearm under the Criminal Code.
For example, Starrett said, some of the items seized were made out of cornstarch.
“You could probably pick it up and squish it,” she said.
Justice Dean Porter acknowledged that the guilty pleas saved the court time and accepted the joint submission of seven years, noting the sentence was on the “lower end but in the range of what a well-informed public would expect to see.”
With credit for time served, Byrne has a little more than four years left on his sentence.
Byrne was the second person in the province’s history to be convicted for so-called ghost-gun related offences. Scott Waterman of Torbay was sentenced to seven years in prison in September 2025 for trafficking 3D-printed weapons.
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