He Trained as a U.S. Air Force Officer. Then Built a Ghost Gun Factory in His Bedroom.

A federal jury in southern Illinois deliberated for roughly 30 minutes on June 12, 2026, before convicting Yaroslav Vishnevski, 33, of Harrisburg on five felony counts. Vishnevski — a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen who graduated magna cum laude from Boston University and completed U.S. Air Force officer training on a path to become a military physician — had turned a room of his home into what prosecutors called a “mini gun factory.”

Federal agents seized three 3D printers, a commercial Ghost Gunner milling machine, a drill press fitted with firearm-specific jigs, and nearly 80 pounds of aluminum shavings — the machined-away byproduct of milling untraceable firearm receivers. They also recovered two homemade short-barreled rifles, multiple 3D-printed silencers imported from China, and a shotgun with its serial number obliterated.

The case began not with a search warrant but with a customs intercept: on April 22, 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in New York flagged a package shipped from China and addressed to Vishnevski containing two suspected firearm silencers. An undercover Illinois State Police agent delivered the parcel to his doorstep. When Vishnevski retrieved it and drove away, marked ISP units pulled him over as a SWAT team executed the search warrant on his home. Sentencing is set for September 24, 2026, at the federal courthouse in Benton, Illinois.

• 5 of 6 counts — guilty — jury deliberated approximately 30 minutes; sixth count previously dismissed · Source: Capitol News Illinois, WSIU
• 3 3D printers + 1 Ghost Gunner CNC — seized from Vishnevski's Harrisburg workshop along with a drill press fitted with firearm-specific jigs · Source: DOJ / USAO-SDIL
• ~80 lbs — of aluminum shavings recovered — byproduct of machining homemade firearm receivers on the Ghost Gunner milling machine · Source: Capitol News Illinois
• Sept. 24, 2026 — sentencing date at the federal courthouse in Benton, Illinois; NFA violations carry up to 10 years per count · Source: WSIU, NPR Illinois

A two-day trial on June 10 and 11, 2026, placed before a Benton, Illinois jury the government’s case that Yaroslav Vishnevski had systematically manufactured and possessed unregistered National Firearms Act weapons inside his Harrisburg home. The jury returned its verdicts on June 12 after roughly half an hour of deliberations.

The five counts: receipt or possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle (two separate SBR counts collapsed under one charge framework); manufacturing an NFA weapon without paying the required special occupancy tax; receipt or possession of an unregistered short-barreled shotgun; receipt or possession of an unregistered silencer; and possession of an imported Atlas Arms 12-gauge short-barreled shotgun with an obliterated serial number. A sixth charge had been dismissed before trial. Under federal law, NFA violations carry penalties of up to ten years per count.

The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois. U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeftframed the outcome in public remarks after the verdict: his office, he said, defends the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans while recognizing that “machine guns, short-barreled rifles, silencers illegally imported from China, and untraceable ghost guns present obvious dangers.”

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When the SWAT team entered Vishnevski’s Harrisburg residence in May 2024, they found not a hobbyist’s workbench but an operation. Three commercial-grade 3D printers sat alongside a Ghost Gunner milling machine — a desktop CNC device purpose-built to mill untraceable “80-percent” firearm receivers into functional, serial-number-free components. A drill press fitted with firearm-specific jigs completed the machining capability. The roughly 80 pounds of aluminum shavings in and around the workspace documented how much raw material had already been processed.

The weapons inventory matched the industrial output: two homemade unregistered short-barreled rifles, multiple 3D-printed silencer frames, and an Atlas Arms 12-gauge short-barreled shotgun with its serial number ground off. A Glock 19X had been modified with an aftermarket stock and vertical foregrip in a configuration that took it outside its original registration, if any. Federal law requires every short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, and silencer to be registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record. Vishnevski had none of those registrations, according to court filings.

“The evidence shows that he was running a mini gun factory out of his house.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Leggans · Closing argument, U.S. v. Vishnevski · June 2026

The investigation opened on April 22, 2024, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepting international parcels in New York flagged a package shipped from China. Inside: two suspected firearm silencers, addressed to Vishnevski’s Harrisburg home. Investigators with the ATF and the Illinois State Police Firearms Investigations Unit took over. They staged a controlled delivery.

On May 2, 2024, an undercover ISP agent dropped the package on Vishnevski’s front porch and watched as he retrieved it and carried it inside. Minutes later, when Vishnevski left the house without the package, marked ISP units pulled him over in a traffic stop. Simultaneously, a SWAT team executed a search warrant at the residence — and found the workshop documented above.

At trial, ATF Firearms Enforcement Officer Jeffrey Bodell, who specializes in 3D-printed firearms, testified about the federal testing lab he runs — one that, he said, 3D-prints firearms “almost daily” from publicly available design files in order to evaluate their mechanical function and determine which federal laws apply. His testimony established that the items seized at Harrisburg were functional firearms under federal law, not inert hobby objects.

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The military background is not incidental to this story. Vishnevski emigrated to the United States from Ukraine as a child, became a U.S. citizen, and built a résumé that looked, on paper, like the successful integration story the country advertises. He earned a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from Boston University in 2014 — graduating magna cum laude. He then completed U.S. Air Force officer training and enrolled at St. Louis University School of Medicine under Air Force orders, on a path to serve as a military physician upon graduation.

He did not finish the medical degree. At some point he left the program before completing it and was transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve — a status that removes an officer from active-duty requirements without a formal discharge. After departing medical school, court records show, Vishnevski worked in pharmaceuticals, collections, security, and ophthalmology, and ran a computer refurbishing business. He also generated income through cryptocurrency. The ghost gun workshop, investigators say, was running alongside all of it.

The National Firearms Act of 1934, enforced by ATF, creates a registration-and-tax regime for a specific class of weapons: machine guns, short-barreled rifles (barrel under 16 inches), short-barreled shotguns (barrel under 18 inches), and silencers. Making, transferring, or possessing any of these without completing the registration process and paying the requisite tax is a federal felony regardless of how the weapon was manufactured — including if it was 3D-printed at home.

The “ghost gun” framing — untraceable because it lacks a serial number — is a separate but overlapping issue. A weapon printed at home and never registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record is both ghost and illegal: it cannot be traced and its existence was never reported to the federal government. That dual status is what the prosecution documented in the Vishnevski case: unregistered, untraceable, manufactured without the required tax, and in two cases with the serial number actively removed.

In March 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld ATF’s 2022 rule extending serial-number and background-check requirements to ghost gun kits in Bondi v. VanDerStok, 7-2. The ruling did not expand what is charged in the Vishnevski case — his counts are pure NFA violations that predate the 2022 rule — but it confirms the regulatory direction: the federal government has broad authority over privately manufactured firearms.

Vishnevski is scheduled to be sentenced on September 24, 2026, before a federal judge at the courthouse in Benton, Illinois. Each NFA count carries a statutory maximum of ten years in federal prison; with five counts, the theoretical ceiling is 50 years, though federal sentencing guidelines will produce a far lower recommended range. The government will have the opportunity to present the full scope of the workshop — volume of hardware, quantity of weapons, the China-sourced silencers, the obliterated serial number — as aggravating factors.

His attorney says he plans to appeal. The factual record he would appeal against, however, is: a customs intercept, a controlled delivery that he physically accepted, a SWAT search that found the workshop in operation, ATF expert testimony that the 3D-printed items were functional NFA weapons under federal law, and a jury that needed 30 minutes to reach five guilty verdicts. We will update this page at sentencing on September 24, 2026.

“We staunchly defend Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans, while simultaneously recognizing that machine guns, short-barreled rifles, silencers illegally imported from China, and untraceable ghost guns present obvious dangers.”

U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft · Southern District of Illinois · June 2026

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Last updated June 13, 2026