A paralyzed Willits boy's campaign to buy a bankrupt gun company and melt down 50,000 unassembled guns failed Thursday.
But Brandon Maxfield may get another chance to destroy the guns and vowed Thursday he won't give up.
"Either way, I want those guns off the street," said the 17-year-old Willits High School student.
Maxfield had hoped to raise about $200,000 in donations and launched an Internet campaign to buy a Southern California gun manufacturing plant.
The plant, owned by Bryco Arms, made the "Saturday night special" that misfired 10 years ago, leaving Maxfield a quadriplegic.
Bryco Arms declared bankruptcy last year just days after an Alameda County jury found the guns were defective and awarded Maxfield $50.9 million in damages.
Bryco owner Bruce Jennings, who designed the guns, was ordered to pay Maxfield $24 million.
Maxfield said he wanted to buy the gun frames to prevent another child from being crippled or killed.
But he failed to raise enough money to outbid the plant's manager, Paul Jimenez, in an auction Thursday in a Florida bankruptcy court.
Jimenez made the lone bid for the Costa Mesa plant, offering $150,000.
But the deal isn't finalized.
U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Jerry Funk took the bid by Jimenez under advisement. The Jacksonville, Fla., court is expected to accept the bid, perhaps as soon as today, according to attorneys on both sides.
However, there is still a chance the judge will reject the bid, said Rick Thames, an attorney representing Maxfield in Florida. If so, the process will start over and Maxfield will have another chance to raise the money, Thames said.
"We're still hoping," said Maxfield's mother, Susan Stansberry. "We're not giving up."
On Thursday, Thames urged the Florida court to reject the bid by Jimenez. He contended it would place Jennings back in control of the company.
Jimenez, who makes about $30,000 a year, cannot afford to buy the plant himself, Thames said. Jimenez said he borrowed the money from the landlord for the Costa Mesa plant, who, in turn, is owed $150,000 from Bryco, Thames said.
Thames said the deal mirrors one used previously by Jennings to maintain control of the gun company. Bryco itself was created from a company Jennings had sold to a plant manager after it went belly up, he said.
"This process is tainted," Thames told the Jacksonville Times-Union. "This is a scam and what makes the bankruptcy court look so bad in the eyes of the public."
Jennings and his lawyers said they were "repulsed" by that argument.
"There is none of this shell game going on that he represents," Jennings told the Jacksonville newspaper.
Maxfield was injured when a 20-year-old man living with the family, Larry Moreford, heard a disturbance and retrieved the gun from a dresser drawer, Stansberry said.
Because of the pistol's faulty design, Moreford had to remove the safety lock to see if it was loaded.
The gun slipped and Moreford bumped the sensitive trigger, causing the .380-caliber semiautomatic to fire.
The Alameda County jury last year found that the gun's design was defective because it requires that users unlock the safety while cleaning, loading and unloading the gun, said Richard Ruggieri, a San Rafael lawyer representing Maxfield.
Ned Nashban, an attorney for Jennings, said the gun's design is common.
He has appealed the verdict against Jennings.
While the cases against Jennings are pending, Maxfield has received money from settlements with other parties to the lawsuit.
They include $5.5 million from Nationwide Sporting Goods, a gun distributor, and $3 million from one of Jennings' ex-wives, Ruggieri said.
He said the money is not enough to cover Maxfield's medical bills, which amount to about $11 million. The boy also faces a lifetime of medical care.
If Funk approves the sale to Jimenez, Maxfield will likely take the donations he collected and use the money for other efforts to buy and destroy guns, Thames said. Both Thames and Stansberry said they did not know how much money Maxfield mustered from his fund-raising campaign.
There are $1.1 million in guns at a distribution facility in Carson City, Nev., owned by Jennings, Nashban said.
Nashban said the company, B.L. Jennings, offered to destroy the guns.
However, such an action would reduce the assets available to repay creditors, including Maxfield.
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