Father and son in Nassau accused of having illegal weapons arsenal

Posted at: 07/03/2012 9:56 PM | Updated at: 07/03/2012 11:19 PM
By: Dan Bazile

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NASSAU -- Lloyd and Susan Radley work on their vegetable garden in a quite community in Nassau, Rensselaer County. They've been there all their lives. The street is even named after them, Radley Road. They never imagined one of their neighbors would be in trouble with federal authorities.

"I guess you don't know who your neighbors are," Susan Radley said.

The Radleys are not the only ones. On the short road with about a dozen homes, it seems everyone knows each other, except for David and Daniel Grinnell. Some residents say they've never even seen the Grinnells.

"I grew up on this road right next door. I can't say I knew them at all," Lloyd Radley said.

The Grinnells are father and son 54 and 23 years old. They're under arrest on federal weapons charges. Police said they found 16 long guns in their home. Some of the weapons were modified to make them illegal, including sawed off barrels, fully automatic and collapsible stocks. Police also found nine handguns and high capacity ammunition magazines. They said neither Grinnells had a New York State pistol permit.

State Police started the investigation three months ago after a tip from their CRIMETIPS website.

"You expect to hear that from the city. But you hear a lot of stuff coming from the cities out to the country," said Paul Work who lives just a few doors down from the scene.

Residents like Ray Gamache said they own guns because they hunt. But they can't imagine a cache of weapons like that was just for hunting purposes.

"Nobody has a use for a fully automatic weapon other than to destroy something," Gamache told Newschannel 13. "If this thing was some kind of illegal thing going on, absolutely. With automatic weapons, I'm shocked,"

The father and son were arraigned in federal court for illegal possession of a machine gun.