Southern Illinois man who printed unregistered 3D guns sentenced to 8 years

BENTON — A federal judge on Thursday imposed an eight-year prison sentence on a man who prosecutors described as running a “mini gun factory” out of his southern Illinois home using 3D printers and a Ghost Gunner milling machine.

Yaroslav Vishnevski, 33, of Harrisburg, was found guilty in a June jury trial on five federal gun charges related to weapons police confiscated from his home during a May 2024 raid. He plans to appeal the conviction.

Homemade 3D-printed guns have drawn national attention for adding to the proliferation of “ghost guns,” firearms that can be difficult to trace because they lack serial numbers.

In response, many states, including Illinois, have sought to crack down in different ways, such as outlawing possession of a 3D-printed gun without a serial number that can be traced if it’s used in a crime. Some states have also started placing restrictions on the digital files used to produce them, and the 3D printers and milling machines themselves.

These efforts are pushing into relatively new legal territory in an already complex and shifting landscape of state and federal gun laws.

Vishnevski was tried in federal court, and federal law generally does not prohibit people from making firearms for their own use, including with 3D printers.

But certain weapons regulated under the National Firearms Act must be registered in advance of possession with the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, and in some cases taxed. Vishnevski was convicted of illegally possessing unregistered guns and silencers that fell under those requirements. He was also convicted of possessing a short-barreled shotgun with an obliterated serial number.

Stephen Richards, Vishnevski’s attorney, asked the judge to treat Vishnevski, who had no prior criminal record, “with justice and a bit of mercy” and urged him to sentence Vishnevski to time served and probation. Vishnevski had spent 11 months in jail prior to his sentencing hearing.

Richards said his client believed strongly in his Second Amendment rights and had no intention of causing anyone harm, even if some might find his extensive gun collection “a little bit nutty.” He noted that Vishnevski had no history of drug use, wasn’t an armed robber and had never held up a bank with the guns he made. Instead, he described the charges as arising from technical violations of specific registration and taxation requirements that “may or may not be constitutional.”

But Tom Leggans, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, urged for a stronger sentence.

“This defendant has just doggedly refused to accept that he had anything to do with the predicament in which he finds himself,” Leggans said.

Leggans said there are plenty of avenues for people who believe the government’s gun restrictions are wrong to challenge them. They can participate in peaceful protests, petition their governmental representatives, and file civil lawsuits that challenge gun laws. But, he said, people cannot simply decide not to follow the laws they disagree with.

Leggans’ comments in court echoed those previously issued in a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois.

“The real world contains nuance, and two things can be true at the same time: We staunchly defend the 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 said in a statement.

Judge expresses his concern

The raid of Vishnevski’s home came after customs officials in New York contacted the Illinois State Police Firearms Investigations Unit, notifying the agency they had intercepted a package containing two silencers mailed from China to Vishnevski. Ryan Propst, an ISP special agent with the Firearms Investigations Unit, testified during Vishnevski’s trial that a search warrant of his home was executed after Vishnevski accepted the package, delivered under surveillance.

Vishnevski did not testify at trial. But he addressed the judge in a short plea before sentencing, saying, “I have wronged no one. I have hurt no one. That is it.”

He previously told CNI that he is a survivalist who believes in self-sufficiency and emergency preparedness. He said he’d ordered a large number of gun-making components because he feared the government would soon crack down on people buying them. He said he’d never sold any of the weapons he made, nor committed any crimes with them, and did not face such charges.

U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert noted that many mass shooters do not have criminal records before carrying out their attacks. He questioned what purpose Vishnevski had for “hoarding guns” and pointed to medical records showing a history of depression, anxiety and panic attacks, conditions which Gilbert noted appear in the medical histories of many mass shooters.

Gilbert repeatedly stressed that he was not saying Vishnevski intended to become a mass shooter. But he said he remained concerned by his mental health history coupled with the evidence presented in the case.

During a two-day trial this summer, prosecutors showed jurors some of the various weapons Vishnevski manufactured using 3D printers, a milling machine and drill press with firearm-specific jigs, finished with a level of craftsmanship that made them difficult to distinguish at a glance from commercially manufactured assault weapons. Prosecutors also displayed photographs of nearly 80 pounds of aluminum shavings that officers hauled from his home during the May 2024 raid.

“I’m not saying you were on the road to being a mass shooter, but you check all the boxes,” Gilbert told him shortly before imposing the eight-year sentence.

Vishnevski pushed back on that characterization. He told the judge he was not mentally ill and said any situational anxiety or depression he experienced stemmed from the federal case against him. He said his panic attacks were limited to a brief period while he was attending medical school, which ceased after he dropped out.

After the trial, Vishnevski sent a text message to Capitol News Illinois from the Benton jail saying he did not have a statement to provide and was “mainly thinking about how it affected my mother and the rest of my family.”

His mother, who traveled to southern Illinois from her home near Boston, watched Thursday’s sentencing hearing from a wooden bench just a few feet behind him. At one point, she stood, seemingly prepared to make a plea to the judge while fighting back tears, before Gilbert instructed her that she had to remain seated. After the hearing, she cried in the hallway as Vishnevski’s attorneys walked her through what the sentence meant for her son.

Afterward, she texted a CNI reporter that she found the judge’s statements comparing her son to mass shooters offensive.

“It’s like comparing you to Lady Gaga. You like [to] sing, but you never be like her,” she wrote. “Bravo America! Bravo to liars, bravo you ruined my son and my life!”

In his texts after the trial, Vishnevski said the judge’s statements “comparing me to some homicidal maniac” would likely help him in the long term as he appealed the case. He also said his medical records do not support those statements.

An immigrant from Ukraine

Vishnevski moved from Ukraine to Greece at age 6 and immigrated to the United States with his parents at age 7. He is now a U.S. citizen.

He graduated magna cum laude from Boston University in 2014 with a degree in biochemistry and molecular biology.

Vishnevski said he later completed Air Force officer training and enrolled at the St. Louis University School of Medicine under orders to serve as an Air Force physician after graduation. He left the program before earning his medical degree and was later transferred to the Individual Ready Reserve.

Vishnevski and his wife, now divorced, moved to Harrisburg in 2020. He said they were attracted by the opportunities and freedoms he believed the small town could offer them.

Before Thursday’s sentencing, Vishnevski told CNI in a lengthy phone call from jail that he did not regret taking his case to trial. He said he believed it was necessary to stand up for the Second Amendment rights he believes in.

“Really, I don’t feel like I deserve any time whatsoever for these changes. If anybody is the victim in this situation, it’s me,” Vishnevski said.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.