Leo Hamel pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a straw-purchasing scheme by former San Diego County sheriff's Capt. Marco Garmo; he forfeited more than 200 guns
Longtime San Diego jeweler Leo Hamel, who for years has appeared in television commercials on local stations, was sentenced Friday morning to home confinement and probation for his role in an illegal gun-buying scheme operated by a former San Diego sheriff’s captain.
Garmo has also pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced last year to two years in federal prison. Garmo made straw-purchases of about 100 off-roster firearms in all for various people, and Hamel was his biggest client. The jeweler, who opened his first shop in 1980 and now has seven locations countywide, believed “the rules of the average person, the regular person, apply to you,” Curiel told him.