Aspiring ghost-gun maker’s sentencing on hold while employer — RRC Polytechnic — conducts investigation

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This article was published 29/03/2025 (184 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Administrators at Red River College Polytechnic have launched an internal investigation after learning a longtime staff member is awaiting sentencing for attempting to manufacture illegal firearms.

Jonathan Ferber stood trial for manufacturing firearms and other related offences, but “as a result of ongoing discussions for many months,” entered a guilty plea to attempting to manufacture firearms, taking a mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence “off the table,” defence lawyer Saul Simmonds told provincial court Judge Catherine Carlson at what was to be Ferber’s sentencing hearing Thursday.

Court documents describe the 39-year-old as a new media technician at the college.

Crown and defence lawyers are jointly recommending Ferber — who also pleaded guilty to unauthorized possession of a suppressor (or “silencer”) and forgery — be sentenced to house arrest for two years less a day.

Carlson agreed to adjourn sentencing until late May after Simmonds told court the college is now investigating Ferber’s actions.

“For some reason, and they won’t tell us who, someone communicated with our client’s employer, causing all kinds of problems for him, so he has to sort things out,” Simmonds said.

“The timing of the sentencing is of concern right now. It’s in the hands of the union and the employer… These investigations are not quick.”

A college spokesperson confirmed the investigation in an email to the Free Press on Friday.

“The college takes these matters seriously and as soon as we were made aware we took immediate steps, including an internal investigation and placing the individual involved on leave,” said communications and public relations manager Emily Doer. “As this matter remains before the courts and deals with confidential employee information, we cannot speak to it further.”

The Canadian Border Services Agency started investigating Ferber in 2019 after learning of his association with co-accused Jim Almazor.

Court records show Almazor, 41, later pleaded guilty to importing and exporting firearms without authorization and making a false statement under the Customs Act. He was sentenced in October 2021 to 42 months in prison.

According to CBSA search warrant documents entered as evidence in Ferber’s case, border service agents in June 2019 intercepted a package Almazor declared to have shipped from a New York address to his Winnipeg address and labelled as containing “glasses, eyewear.”

Instead of eyewear, the package was found to contain six handgun frames, known as “receivers.” Almazor did not have a licence to import or sell the firearm parts.

As their investigation progressed, border service agents came to suspect Ferber “may be involved in the importation, smuggling and possession of illegally imported pistol receiver blanks and the manufacturing of those components into completed functional forms,” Carlson wrote in a decision dismissing a defence motion challenging the validity of the search warrants.

An investigation revealed Ferber had received package shipments “close in time” to shipments Almazor received, from the same New York address, and had received multiple shipments from firearm retailers. Ferber was not licensed to possess firearms.

“While the contents described in the shipments were not items that were illegal for Mr. Ferber to receive or possess without a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL), such items could be consistent with use in the completion of pistol frames,” Carlson said.

Ferber’s social media postings revealed an “apparent interest” in manufacturing homemade or 3D-printed firearms and purchasing police uniforms and vehicles, and that he may have had access to machinery capable of manufacturing firearm parts.

Intercepted packages delivered to Ferber’s home or a post office box included different spellings of his name and that of the declared shipper, a ruse meant to reduce the likelihood the packages would be intercepted and examined by border service agents, said search warrant documents.

A more detailed review of Ferber’s involvement is expected to be provided for court at sentencing.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca