A Pennsylvania man charged with taking part in the smash-and-grab burglary of a New Kensington gun shop could have been sentenced to a decade or more behind bars for his crimes, but instead he'll likely be walking out of federal prison less than a year from now. 

27-year-old Michael Guin was sentenced to 20 months in prison and three years of supervised probation on Tuesday; an awfully light sentence considering the nature of his offense.  

Guin crashed a pickup truck through the main door of RC Firearms around 3:30 a.m. on January 22, 2024. Investigators said Steyn Sarduy then ran inside and smashed the front door, and Guin went in after him. 

Once inside the building, the two proceeded to vandalize the store and steal 24 guns before driving off. Guin initially attempted to blame the robbery on Sarduy and his father, but investigators did not believe him. 

Sarduy was picked up by authorities on an active warrant for a probation violation and he confessed to the burglary, giving a detailed description of what happened before and after.  

He also told investigators that Guin was the second person involved and that the burglary was Guin's idea. Sarduy told authorities he and Guin split the firearms they stole, getting 12 each. 

Since Guin has been in jail awaiting trial for about a year, he only has to serve about another seven months before he'll be released on probation.

Guin, by the way, was previously convicted of a felony offense, so he's not allowed to possess a firearm legally, much less steal a dozen guns from the FFL. The felon-in-possession charge alone could have resulted in a ten year sentence and a $250,000 fine, and if prosecutors had thrown the book at him, each stolen firearm found in his possession could have added another ten years to his sentence. 

Even if those sentences had been ordered to run concurrently Guin should have been starting down the barrel of a decade behind bars. So why did he get a slap on the wrist, and who was responsible for his light punishment? U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer was the one who sentenced Guin, but the U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case are the ones who offered Guin one helluva plea deal.

He pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy, theft of a firearm from a licensed dealer and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

His co-conspirator, Steyn Sarduy, 19, of New Kensington, took a plea deal in December, which calls for 2½ years of federal prison time.

The burglary took place in the early morning hours of Jan. 22, 2024, when the men used a pickup truck as a battering ram to break into RC Firearms on Freeport Street.

At first, they smashed the truck into an adjacent garage door — which does not connect to the gun store — before returning a few minutes later to repeat the maneuver on the front entrance.

Once inside, Guin and Sarduy used a hammer to smash display cases and steal two dozen firearms, including 17 9 mm handguns, three .380-caliber handguns and two 12-gauge shotguns.

When multiple defendants are charged with a crime, it's not unusual for one of them to be offered a deal in exchange for testifying against their compatriot. In this case, however, both Guin and Sarduy were given the opportunity to plead to lesser charges, so it's not like the Biden DOJ was trying to play one against the other. 

President Donald Trump has ordered the immediate firings of all Biden-appointed U.S. Attorneys, but that edict won't apply here since the federal prosecutor who oversaw these guilty pleas has already stepped down. Eric Olshan, who was appointed U.S. Attorney for Western Pennsylvania by Joe Biden in 2023, announced his resignation the day before Trump took office for his second term. 

 Under Joe Biden's watch the Justice Department went after gun owners and FFLs with zeal, while cutting criminals like Guin far too much slack for their offenses.  Trump has ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to revisit the DOJ's policies on gun prosecutions, and this case should be highlighted for the egregiously light treatment given to Guin and his co-defendant by the previous administration. Hopefully plea bargains like this will be a thing of the past in Trump's DOJ, and the department will actually crack down on these types of crimes instead of giving guys like Guin an undeserved deal.