Ex-cop gets prison for selling guns to gangs

A former State Police sergeant was sentenced Friday to 64 months in prison for selling guns to gang members out of his North Riverside home.

Dennis Kalinoski, 62, had pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge, admitting he sold three semiautomatic pistols to a government informant in order to obtain crack cocaine.

Kalinoski will receive credit for the 19 months he already served in a federal lockup.

The 17-year State Police veteran took the stand to argue he was not of sound mind when he sold the guns. He also told the court he made a mistake.

The judge could have sentenced him to up to 10 years in prison.

Thomas Ahern of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the government is continuing to investigate whether the guns Kalinoski sold wound up in crimes.

"There was a rash of shootings in west suburban Maywood at the time of those gun exchanges," Ahern said. "We believe some of his guns were related to that."

Federal agents seized 402 guns and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition from Kalinoski's home in a May 2003 raid. More than 100 guns in his inventory were missing and presumed to have been sold.

Kalinoski operated a gun shop called Dekalin Ltd. out of his home in the 1980s, but the company dissolved in 1988. In June 2002, he lost his federal license to sell guns because he failed to renew it, authorities said.

Kalinoski admitted in secretly taped conversations that he helped stir up a war between gangs in Maywood -- the Black P Stones and the Four Corner Hustlers -- apparently by selling guns to both gangs.

In one recorded exchange, a gang member tells Kalinoski, "You got enough [expletive] in here to start a [expletive] war." Kalinoski replies, "I think I already did."