http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...,0,741930.story
Some of Lake Forest man's seized guns are collectibles, attorney says
By Andrew Wang | Tribune reporter
11:17 AM CDT, May 9, 2008
Chicago- Many of the 85 guns seized from an options trader's Lake Forest home were collectibles and safely stored in his basement when authorities raided his home, his attorney said Friday at a bond hearing.
The defendant, Benjamin Stevens, "is a collector of antique weapons," said attorney Doug Zeit. "He has had them for years. A number of law enforcement personnel have known he had them, and there has been no problem."
Lake County Judge Dan Shanes set bond for Stevens, 49, at $700,000.
In addition to the weapons, prosecutors said, police recovered about 50,000 rounds of ammunition from Stevens' home. If the ammunition, some of which has been sent to a crime lab, turns out to be armor-piercing, that would be a federal crime, officials said.
Stevens' (firearms owner permission) card was revoked in 2002 after a domestic battery arrest, a law enforcement source said.
Authorities will also test two .50-caliber machine guns seized in the raid to determine whether they were capable of firing in fully automatic mode, which would lead to more serious federal charges, according to Donald Sorrano, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
ATF agents and state police raided Stevens' 5,000-square-foot house in the 1900 block of Telegraph Road late Thursday morning. The home, which has a six-car garage and sits on 2 acres, is worth more than $2 million, public records show.
Stevens was charged in March with misdemeanor domestic battery in Lake County after he allegedly pushed his teenage son and wife and struck his teenage daughter.
He had been free on $5,000 bail in that case, court records show.
Stevens owns Benjamin & Jerold, a Chicago brokerage with an office on Jackson Boulevard in the Loop.
An earlier report in the Tribune identified Stevens as a commodities trader, but he actually is an options trader.
Stevens' home sits on a secluded two-lane road lined with multimillion-dollar mansions on sprawling lots in the western part of Lake Forest.
alwang@tribune.com