Demetrio Daga, a 44-year-old Albany father with no prior record, faces what prosecutors call a 40-year maximum after a jury convicted him on 15 gun counts. The statutes show how the number gets there, and why the date he learns his fate keeps moving.

What did the jury actually convict Daga of?

On Aug. 26, Albany County District Attorney Lee Kindlon announced that a jury had found Daga guilty on every count after a seven-day trial and about two hours of deliberation, CBS 6 Albany reported. The indictment had one count of first-degree criminal possession of a weapon, two of second degree, three of third degree and nine of criminal possession of a firearm.

State Police arrested him on Jan. 8, 2025, after a traffic stop turned up a loaded 3D-printed 9mm handgun in his vehicle, according to the Daily Gazette. Searches of two residences followed. Investigators listed 13 ghost handguns, 22 ghost AR-style rifles, 18 serialized AR-style rifles, two pump shotguns, more than 200 printed receivers and frames, and body armor. A prosecutor told the jury in closing that he was "building an arsenal."

Neither report I opened says he sold a gun to anyone. His mother, Domenica Greco, told a Second Amendment Foundation outlet he was never accused of misusing or selling one, as Shooting News Weekly republished it. That is her statement, and I could not check it against court records.

Seizure counts as reported by CBS 6 Albany and the Daily Gazette, charted against the firearm-count thresholds in New York Penal Law 265.02, 265.03 and 265.04. Chart by PatriotAddict.

Is this a "homemade gun" case or a counting case?

AmmoLand's Oct. 26 report ties the 15 counts to New York's ban on unserialized, privately made guns. The charge names in the verdict reports are the state's general possession statutes, and several of them turn on how many guns a person has.

First-degree possession, Penal Law 265.04, covers a person who "possesses ten or more firearms." Second degree, 265.03, reaches possession of five or more. Third degree, 265.02, has a three-or-more clause. Fifty-five guns clears every one of those lines whether or not a single serial number was missing. The verdict reports do not say which subdivisions the jury used, so I am not claiming that is how the counts were built. It is the plainest reading of the numbers.

Where does "40 years" come from?

The figure is the district attorney's office's, repeated by CBS 6 and the Gazette. The statutes give a per-count ceiling. Under section 70.02(3), a class B violent felony carries a determinate term of "at least five years and must not exceed twenty-five years," and class C "must not exceed fifteen years." Section 70.00 caps a class D felony at seven years and a class E at four. The firearm-possession count is class E, according to 265.01-b.

Per-count statutory maximums from New York Penal Law 70.02 and 70.00, against the 40-year figure reported from the DA's office. Chart by PatriotAddict.

No single count reaches 40. The top count tops out at 25, so any total above that depends on the judge stacking terms. My arithmetic, not the DA's: 25 plus 15 is 40. Under section 70.25, terms for offenses committed through a single act "must run concurrently," and otherwise sentences run concurrently unless the court directs otherwise. Whether Judge Andra Ackerman treats 55 guns in two homes as separate acts is her call, and I found no ruling on it. Stacking all 15 counts at their maximums would exceed 100 years, so 40 is clearly not the sum of the ceilings.

Why does the sentencing date keep moving?

CBS 6 and the Gazette both reported sentencing for Oct. 8. AmmoLand says it is now Nov. 30, after the Albany County Probation Department ordered a new presentence report with no reason given. I could not find a second outlet confirming the Nov. 30 date, so treat it as AmmoLand's report.

AmmoLand says the earlier report recommended probation with no added jail time. Shooting News Weekly, which carries Second Amendment Foundation reporting, says the same and adds that the judge reportedly said she may not follow it. Neither outlet quotes the report or names its author, and the judge did not respond to that outlet. AmmoLand also cites a Times Union story for an eight-year plea offer that Daga turned down. The Times Union blocked my access, so that figure is secondhand.

Daga is in the Albany County jail until the judge rules. The one number that is not in dispute is the one in the statute book: no single count in this case carries more than 25 years, and everything beyond that is a decision one judge makes on Nov. 30 or whenever the date next changes.

Header photo: Albany County Courthouse, Albany, New York. Photo: Albeit simple via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Resized.