Drug dealer used meth to coax Blue Bell woman to buy guns for him, DA says

Monica Kumpf went on a whirlwind shopping spree at four gun shops in Montgomery County last month, spending thousands of dollars on 11 guns in as many days, investigators said Tuesday.

The money wasn’t hers. Neither were the guns.

Kumpf, 31, has been charged along with her boyfriend, Philip Jensen, 31, and Gaime Hailemichael, 25, the alleged mastermind of the operation, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said.

Hailemichael, who has a drug record, was unable to legally buy the guns himself, Steele said, so he persuaded Kumpf to act as a straw purchaser and in exchange plied her with methamphetamine, marijuana, and stays in motel rooms throughout the region.

“This type of organization’s sole purpose is to make money by putting firearms in the hands of people who cannot lawfully buy and possess guns on their own,” Steele said. “That should concern every law-abiding citizen."

All three defendants were charged Tuesday with operating a corrupt organization, as well as gun and drug offenses, court records show. And all three remained in custody on $1 million bail, and face preliminary hearings on Tuesday.

The enterprise was run out of Hailemichael’s home in North Wales, Steele said. When officers served a warrant on his home, they discovered two of the guns Kumpf had bought, as well as a kilo of uncut cocaine, worth between $75,000 and $100,000, according to investigators.

Kumpf had returned another gun not long after she purchased it, leaving eight unaccounted for, Steele said. Additionally, investigators uncovered evidence that Kumpf had tried to buy six more guns, but was turned away by store clerks who raised suspicions about her motives for buying so many firearms.

Her last, unsuccessful attempt to buy a gun came just hours before she was arrested on possession of methamphetamine, investigators said.

“Criminals should understand that we are very vigilant about this,” Steele said. “That’s the work we’re doing in this county, and we are chasing down every lead we can.”

Investigators were first tipped off to the scheme on April 26, when a clerk at American Arms & Ammo in Hatfield Township became suspicious of the quantity of guns Kumpf had purchased, four over three days. He called police, fearing that she was buying the guns for “some nefarious purpose,” according to court records.

From there, detectives learned that Hailemichael and Jensen had been coaching Kumpf, of Blue Bell, through all of the transactions, Steele said. They created shopping lists of guns for her to purchase, and helped her create back stories to ward off prying clerks, including that her family had upcoming plans to go to a shooting range, according to the affidavit of probable cause for their arrests.

They arranged transportation for her through Uber, and met up at motel rooms throughout the county to exchange guns and money.

Text messages recovered from Kumpf’s cellphone showed that Jensen was advertising the guns for sale, taking “selfies” with them and offering them at significant markups, including a 7.62 x 39mm-caliber pistol for nearly $1,000 more than what Kumpf purchased it for.

“If anyone thinks they are going to get away with this, they should talk with Michael Hill, who’s serving 27½ to 55 years,″ Steele said. The prosecutor was referring to the sentence a county judge passed down to Hill for straw purchases in 2018. The state Superior Court recently denied an appeal by Hill.

“It’s a lengthy sentence that reflects the seriousness of gun trafficking,” Steele said.

This story has been revised to correct an error in describing Michael Hill’s criminal record.