Deputies raid Ramona home of Lakeside burglary suspect, find illegal and stolen guns

RAMONA — 

Deputies investigating a string of storage facility burglaries raided a suspect’s home Monday in Ramona, where they discovered some four dozen firearms, including guns that were reported stolen and others that were fully automatic, sheriff’s officials said.

Investigators arrested the 37-year-old man and booked him into jail on suspicion of more than a dozen felony gun, theft and burglary charges, including being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession of a machine gun, an assault weapon, a silencer and several short-barreled rifles.

Monday’s raid was the result of an investigation by detectives from the sheriff’s Lakeside substation into a string of recent burglaries at Ace Self Storage on Winter Gardens Boulevard south of Woodside Avenue, according to Lt. Shawn Wray.

Investigators identified a suspect and obtained a warrant to search his home on El Cajon Lane, a short dirt cul-de-sac off Ramona Street close to Ramona High School, Wray said in a news release. Deputies from Lakeside, Santee, Alpine, Ramona and the sheriff’s SWAT unit served the warrant around 2 p.m. Monday.

“Many of the firearms are assault weapons and fully automatic machine guns that are illegal to possess,” Wray said in the news release. “Some of the recovered firearms had also been previously reported as stolen.”

The deputies also found a small amount of methamphetamine and other weapons, like batons and brass knuckles, that are illegal to possess, Wray said.

The suspect remained jailed Tuesday at the Vista Detention Facility in lieu of $322,000 bail, jail records showed. Court records showed the man pleaded guilty in 2013 to a federal charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

At the time of his arrest in the federal case, the man was allegedly driving with 15 pounds of cannabis and a semiautomatic handgun.