A Winnipeg man already serving a prison term for trafficking firearms assembled with a 3D printer has been handed a 10-year term for orchestrating the manufacturing and selling of more such guns from behind bars.
Blake Ellison-Crate, 26, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count each of manufacturing firearms and trafficking in firearms. He had been serving a 12-year sentence.
Ellison-Crate “is currently serving…the longest sentence imposed in Canada for these types of offences, yet that did not deter him from continuing to commit these offences while in federal custody,” Crown attorney Vanessa Gama told provincial court Judge Mark Kantor.
ERIK PINDERA / FREE PRESS FILES
3D-printed Glock-style pistol lower receivers, which police allege were assembled into functioning guns, were seized in 2023 as part of an investigation into Blake Ellison-Crate and others.
Ellison-Crate had no criminal record when police arrested him after a 2021 police investigation that found he had been recruiting people through Kijiji to use 3D printers to make handgun receivers for him, claiming the parts were to be used for video game consoles.
He sourced other parts from people and companies in Manitoba and out of province. Videos found on Ellison-Crate’s cellphone at the time showed him tooling and assembling the weapons in his bathroom.
He partnered with another man, Jashon Fernando, who handled sales of the weapons. One of the handguns Ellison-Crate built was used in the shooting of two boys at the Red River Exhibition in 2022. Another was found in the home of two men later convicted of second-degree murder in the April 2022 killing of St. Norbert resident Brandon Richard.
Ellison-Crate was serving his prison sentence in November 2022 when a Winnipeg welding company called city police about a “suspicious customer” who had asked it to manufacture metal parts later confirmed to be firearm rails, which are used exclusively for making 3D-printed handguns, Gama told court Tuesday, reading from an agreed statement of facts.
Police launched a four-month investigation that revealed Ellison-Crate had partnered with the “suspicious customer,” 26-year-old Michael Rivers, to manufacture the illegal ghost guns, so named because they cannot be traced.
Ellison-Crate used a secret cellphone to order gun parts online and had them shipped to his girlfriend’s home. Rivers would then pick up the parts, with Ellison-Cate providing him direction on how to assemble them into complete guns using a 3D printer.
“Ellison-Crate had buyers for the completed firearms arranged through his network in prison,” Gama said.
Cellphone records show Ellison-Crate and Rivers in contact with each other for as long as 10 hours a day.
Court heard Ellison-Crate recruited his mother, Twyla Ellison, and his stepfather to deposit thousands of dollars into a bank account he could access, which he immediately spent on gun components. Twyla Ellison has since been charged with conspiracy to manufacture and traffic in firearms.
“The fact that he has now dragged family members into this has been something he has had to really reconcile with,” defence lawyer Kathy Bueti said. “He is really concerned (about) what is going to happen to his mother and his stepfather.”
Bueti said Ellison-Crate had no intention of returning to gun-making but was seriously assaulted by gang-affiliated inmates when he resisted their pressure to supply weapons to gang members outside prison.
“He was very much dragged back into this lifestyle,” Bueti said. “The Crown says he was motivated by greed. He sees it more as self-preservation.”
Ellison-Crate said he lives in constant fear for his safety.
“All the guys want are guns,” he told court. “Once you say no to bribes, then it’s threats… My life is on the line every day.”
Gama said Ellison-Crate could have sought protection from prison authorities rather than continue to supply the criminal community with illegal firearms.
“His initial reason may have been to appease others… but once he was in it, he was in it,” Gama said. “There was a legal way out for him.”
Gama and Bueti jointly recommended the 10-year sentence, which Kantor endorsed before slamming Ellison-Crate for his failure to show any remorse for the people killed or injured by the weapons he put in the hands of criminals.
“I shudder at the thought of how many guns are in the community and abroad,” Kantor said. “Not once have you expressed remorse for those people for what you have done… and the evil you have bestowed upon our community.”
dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.