Former Potomac Falls Navy Official Convicted in Silencers Conspiracy

A Potomac Falls man and former Director of Intelligence for the Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy Office of Plans, Policy, Oversight, and Integration (PPOI) Intelligence Directorate was convicted Wednesday of conspiracy to transport unregistered firearms, conspiracy to commit mail fraud and theft of government property.

Lee Hall, 53, faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on the theft of government property conviction and an additional 5 years on the conspiracy conviction.

Also convicted Oct. 29 was Mark Stuart Landersman, 53, of Temecula, Calif. Landersman is the brother of Hall’s former supervisor, David Landersman, the PPOI Senior Intelligence Director. Mark Landersman was convicted of conspiracy to illegally manufacture and deal firearms, conspiracy to transport unregistered firearms, and conspiracy to commit mail fraud.

Landersman faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Both will be sentenced Jan. 30, 2015.

According to court records and evidence at trial, in the fall of 2012 Lee Hall redirected $1.6 million in research funds towards the purchase of firearm silencers from Landersman. Landersman was the owner of Advanced Machining and Engineering (AME), a small business in Temecula, Calif.

In November 2012, Landersman arranged for a machine shop owner to manufacture parts for 349 silencers and provided the blueprint for the silencers to the machine shop owner.

Landersman then picked up the silencer parts, and assembled them. None of the 349 silencers bore serial numbers, and Landersman paid the machine shop owner less than $10,000 for the labor and materials to manufacture the silencers.

On Feb. 13, 2013, Landersman shipped four boxes containing the silencers from California to a facility in Maryland where they sat for several weeks before being seized by NCIS agents in early April 2013. The silencers were subsequently tested by a Department of Navy testing facility and failed a series of tests, including flash and sound suppression.