A New York woman has been battling trumped-up charges for nearly two years after police raided her home in 2019, seized 21 fake guns and one inoperable firearm, and hit her with felony gun possession charges.
Prosecutors have since dropped the felony counts, but they’re still trying to convict her of misdemeanor offenses.
“This has been hell for two years for me and my children,” 33-year-old Elizaveta Zlatkis told the New York Post this week. “They publicly humiliated me, and now they refuse to admit that they were wrong.”
“They are trying to save face and extend this case past three years so I can’t sue them,” she claimed. “They want me to take a plea [deal], but I didn’t do anything wrong.”
In December of 2019, New York Police Department’s 112th Precinct celebrated taking “multiple guns off the street” after they raided Zlatkis’s home and seized the offending weapons.
Great job yesterday from our Field Intelligence Officer and Special Operations Unit for a successful search warrant taking multiple guns off the streets of Forest Hills. pic.twitter.com/4oNwIeRjYp
— NYPD 112th Precinct (@NYPD112Pct) December 28, 2019
SEE ALSO: Colorado School Suspends Student Five Days for ‘Waving’ Toy Gun During Zoom Class
But many of the “weapons” were obviously fake. After prosecutors took a closer look, they realized that 21 of the 22 guns were toy replicas, air rifles, or starter pistols. Only one of the pistols was real, according to sources who spoke with the New York Post, and that one is inoperable because it’s missing the trigger, handgrip, and internal workings.
Zlatkis said at the time that the toy guns belonged to her then-husband, who loaned them to rappers for use in music videos.
Despite these new revelations, New York officials are trying to save face by charging Zlatkis with a slew of misdemeanors. Queens prosecutors filed a new complaint without the felony charges but still hit Zlatkis with 11 counts of possession of an imitation pistol, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of possession of ammunition for a pistol or revolver.
If officers had realized the guns were toys, it’s unclear whether Zlatkis would be facing any charges at all. Now, she’s prepared to go to trial.
“I’m willing to go to trial,” she said. “But the last thing that they want is the embarrassment when I beat them in court. My 11-year-old son knew the guns weren’t real.”
SEE ALSO: Police Called to Home After Classmate Spots a Toy Gun on Zoom
Commenters on the 112th Precinct’s tweet are well worth a read. Here are just a few:
So…You ruined some poor kid’s Christmas by stealing all of his airsoft gear? pic.twitter.com/5dYHRYQCJg
— David Warberg (@Jumpkix) January 2, 2020
It is pretty hilarious that pigs from long island can’t identify a firearm even if given the maximum law enforcement training at their disposal. pic.twitter.com/JHiXSA3PiK
— no pasarán (@notmynypd) December 12, 2020
These are toys you absolute clowns
— lumpyprol (@lumpyprol) December 13, 2020
What a joke. Your proud of this achievement. You settled on busting toy guns because your unsuccessful in taking real guns off the streets. Well, what do you expect if you have Joker as the mayor! You better off giving those toy guns to orphans for christmas.
— Rey Alpuerto (@reyan504) December 15, 2020
Sue the city for wrongful prosecution
NYPD are such brave, honest, and upstanding officers of the law who would NEVER do anything wrong. If you don’t believe me, just ask Frank Serpico or Jason Serrano or Stephen Anderson.
If you live anywhere in New York . . . move. I did and never looked back.
Odd that police are first train with fake weapons first before moving to actual handguns (carry, use, internal, external parts, assemble, disassemble) and ammo?
I can’t understand why any Prosecutor would do anything with a case like this. NYPD officers normally are professional people that do a great job. Gun crimes are Gun crimes. New York has had the Sullivan law since 1911. Sullivan was the Mayor and was so hated he feared being shot. He got laws passed making possession of any firearms by civilians illegal with out a license. The only time you can charged with a criminal offense with a replica Gun is if your carrying it on the street. You can get a premises permit to own a legally owned Gun in your home or business.
The article doesn’t say what the back story is that got Police involved with her to start with. I guess we won’t hear about that part. What 99% of people writing posts here don’t know is punks and thugs will carry air soft or guns that can’t fire because if they get caught the charges are reduced and if convicted a substantial reduction in prison time because they knew that they couldn’t shoot the victims even though the victims didn’t know it at the time. There obviously are two sides to this story. I’d like to hear it for the sake of knowing everything. She doesn’t have to wait to sue, she can do that anytime. Obviously there’s more to this story.
Old enough to remember WACO? On the table displaying the arsenal captured from the Branch Dividians, were pellet and BB, spring and CO2 powered air rifles mixed in with actual firearms, none of which could compare to what the feds brought to bear. And nobody every explained the two half buried school buses used as shelters, that the women and children hid in that had their roofs riddled with bullet holes. Some of those holes were 20mm size.
These are the guns that should have been on the Rust movie set with Alec Baldwin… He obviously doesn’t know the difference of a real or fake gun either!
Straight from the Communist Play Book.
Dis-Arm the Population so it can be controlled.
Morons. I know a few cops and some are dumber than a bucket of piss like these idiots.
What idiot legislator drafted a law for “possession of an imitation pistol?” My whole neighborhood growing up would’ve been arrested….SMH
One more example of the never ending demonization of firearms. The is absolutely no reason to believe NYPD did not immediately recognize the guns as fake.
We are here from the government. We are here to help. Place your hands on your head.
Well they have people so afraid of guns that they will believe anything, so I would say it still is a win for the anti’s and will be used in their statistics. Hollywood would use them to portray real guns so that would also work to convince the the snowflakes, since they are the experts!
The gun banning groups say only cops should have firearms and that they are experts on them. What a joke. They can’t even tell the difference between a real firearm and a toy, until their “experts” at the crime lab examine and look them over.
These same demoncrap run cities have so called “gun buy backs” giving a gift certificate for $50 to purchase tennis shoes. . Saying the rusted single shot shotguns and broken rifles turned in will cause crime to go down in the city. The police also have a undercover agent in disguise putting guns on the table ( that were recoverd from crimes). to make sure the gun turn in look more effective.
If people have guns they don’t want, they can take them to a gun store and sell them and get more money.
Also at these “gun buy backs” the police have surveillance vans taking videos of everyone who shows up and photos of their cars and license plate number.
If these demoncrap mayor’s want to do something, why not have a ” car buy back” as cars kill over 50,000 a year, twice as many as all combined gun shooting.
Illegal drugs now kill over 100,000 a year.
Doctors kill over 100,000 a year by malpractice.
Cancer kills over a million a year.
Maybe if these demoncrap mayor’s would stop listening to a bunch of loud mouth criminals, rioters, looters, protesters, and arsonist and stopped trying to defund-abolish the police and let the police go out and arrest the criminals and put them away in prison for a long sentences then crime would go down. It’s as simple as that.
Many of these demoncrap run cities have a “no bail required” and release criminals back to the streets to commit more crimes.
People who commit murder are let go on a $1.00 bail and go back out onto the streets to commit more murders.
In commiefornia, shoplifter’s walk into retail clothing stores, grab arm fulls of clothes off the racks and walk out to a waiting car, and no one does anything to stop them, they just film it on their cell phones. If and when these shoplifter’s are ever caught, they are not charged with any crime and are let go bbecause they are a minority and “poor”.
They have over 800 gun laws in commiefornia and the far leftist politicians yell ” we need more and more gun control!”
Well, what about all the laws on the books now? Do they actually believe that adding more gun laws that criminals will obey them? The criminals could care less about the laws, if they are ever arrested, the prosecutor drops gun charges and let’s them go to commit more crimes.
The gun banning groups now want all semi auto rifles banned, claiming that every gang member and drug dealer in America walks around the streets carrying one. How would they know this? The gun banning groups just make up stuff just to scare people into donating more money to them. It is illegal for gang members ,drug dealers and felons to have any firearm.
These gun banning groups are run and funded by Micheal Bloomberg, George Soros, the Chinese government, the U.N., Russia, north Korea and Mexico.
The administration is having sections of the border wall taken down and sold off for scrap. This is so more illegals, cartel members, m13 gang members, drug dealers, terrorists,. spies,. prostitutes can come to America and the administration welcomes them.
Do we really want America to end up like India with over a billion people living on the streets, in cardboard boxes, sidewalks and alleys and eating garbage out of dumpsters?
Remember that an armed population cannot be taken over by foreign country.
China wants Australia, New Zealand and America.
Only evil, far leftist power crazed politiicians who want to enslave all Americans want evil gun control.
AOC and the squad want to repeal the 2nd amendment. AOC and the squad want to replace the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights with something out of Castro and Stalin handbook. AOC wants to replace the American flag too.
The far leftist power crazed politicians want to make all Americans their “New World Order Slaves”. They say ” we are your masters, we are your gods, you will get down on your knees and bow before us and worship us or we will put you into the cattle cars to be sent to the concentration extermination camps”.
Far leftist politicians in DC want to have credit card companies and banks report who is purchasing guns and ammo claiming this will stop terrorists and criminals. All this does is affect the la abiding citizens.
Protect and support your right to keep and own all types of firearms and accessories. Join pro gun groups, hunting groups.
Buy more guns, ammo and accessories now before it’s too late.
James, buddy I wish you would run for President. We need some one like you to run this country and save us from these evil pathetic losers! Everything you said is true, God help us because the shit storm is coming right out of the ass of these leftist commie politicians.
Dude, take your meds, your talking points and get some rest.
These idiots probably don’t know the difference. By the way. the Democratic Party wants to disarm the police next, then our military. Wait until New York’s nastiest finds out that YOU now have toy guns!
I have been gunsmithing since 1968. As a general rule police officers know only the basics about firearms.
I have an officer complain that his gun just jams and will not accept a cartridge (they say bullet -WRONG) into the chamber. He had .380 ammo in the magazine when it should have been 9mm.
In the shop an officer ( a Lieutenant) was blowharding about rifle trajectory. He said that the bullet will fly straight but looses power when it begins to climb, then looses power and begins to fall.
Velocity of a bullet decreases from the time it leaves the muzzle
I better keep my hands in my pockets. Wouldn’t want to risk an arrest for having fingers used to imitate firearms.
I wouldn’t expect anything less from democrats who are running NYC into the ground. One has to wonder how much longer the citizens of NYC will keep putting these idiots in power?
Doing the same thing over and over is a sign of mental illness. So is voting Democrat!
This is hardly surprising from a neocommunist
administration . Their behavior in this matter is
exactly the same as that of Moscow , Peking ,&
Hanoi in the 1960’s and 70’s . Elections have
consequences . What is so hard to figure out
about that ?
“elections have consequences ” yeah..like leaving you with the overwhelming feeling that you’ve just been robbed blind!!
Thank you for sharing my story … this has been a disaster and a huge undermine of my character. My attorney and I have so much other things that we can show in the press of where 112 did wrong but all we want is for the city to do what’s right not have a public battle. Thanks to 112 my entire life was destroyed
You should move from that communist shit hole and come to the USA.
Did you vote Democrat? If you did, I have no sympathy . If you vote Republican, try to move out of that hell hole.
Unbelievable story, what the heck has happened to this country! Like others have said, I would be moving! Come to Texas we have real guns here and as a bonus we are allowed to use them for self protection. Screw you NY and your idiot cops!
It’s New York. The only real solution is to move to a gun friendly red state like Texas, Wyoming, Idaho etc. Get the hell out of there and NEVER vote democrat.
Too bad, so sad you guys must really be proud of yourselves! TOY guns, really? Why don’t you go out and arrest a real criminal? And typical prosecutors, can’t figure out how to get out of this without getting sued and without embarrassment so you just keep filing new charges. LET IT GO and wait for the lawsuit!
NYC Field Intelligence Officer and Special Operations Unit looks incompetent in this round. And then to brag about it. And to look pleased, smiling, in front of toy guns – Pathetic.
Your only salvation from further shame is to let this lady go and move on.