Amsterdam man sentenced for role in 2017 Glenville gun store heist

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Police investigate a burglary at Target Sports Inc., on Oct. 23, 2017

SYRACUSE – One of several men who admitted roles in the 2017 heist at Target Sports in Glenville was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.

Onic Martinez, 34, admitted earlier to transporting and possessing firearms stolen in the burglary.

He pleaded guilty in August and admitted he retrieved dozens of stolen firearms from a storage locker in Schenectady, where the principles in the heist, Christian Roman and Jose Fontanez hid them shortly after taking them.

Martinez received several of the stolen firearms in exchange for his assistance, prosecutors said.

The 10-year Martinez sentence also came as he has two prior felony convictions, which prohibited him from possessing firearms, prosecutors said.

Both Roman, 24, of Schenectady, and Fontanez, 36, of Schenectady, are to be sentenced next month.

Two other secondary figures, Dalmary Morales, 37, of Schenectady, and Juan Saez, 35, of Rochester, are also to be sentenced for their roles in April.

Fontanez and Roman were arrested within two weeks of the Oct. 22-23, 2017 overnight break-in. The men broke a store window sometime after the business closed on Oct. 22 and made several trips into the building, taking the guns, ammunition and other property, prosecutors have said.

Security cameras captured the suspects on video, but no alarm sounded. Owners have said early tests didn’t find a cause for that failure, and police have previously said they believe the suspects essentially got lucky.

Some guns were recovered in Schenectady and others in Rochester, Brian Mein, resident ATF agent in charge, said in April 2018. He would not give an exact number of firearms recovered by then but estimated it was about half of those taken. None of the guns recovered had been associated with any crimes as of then, Mein said. The serial number of each weapon is in a federal database.