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Teen Tied Up In Gun Robbery Testifies

Family Bound, Terrorized For Hours While 50 Collector Guns Stolen From Home

POSTED: Thursday, November 5, 2009
UPDATED: 9:38 pm EST November 5, 2009

The teenage son of a Westland gun collector whose family was bound and robbed in September took the stand in a preliminary trial against two of the four suspects accused in the crime and recounted the terrifying ordeal.

The gun collector also took the stand Thursday and said, "I felt like I was going to get killed."

Four men were charged in connection with the robbery of a family inside their home. However, only two of the men were in court Thursday.

Police said Leonard Joseph Hren, 47, of Detroit waived his pre-trial exam and Robert Lawrence Kirby, 24, of Detroit will be tried in a Detroit court.

During the testimony the 14-year-old boy identified Adam Brent Mastaw, 25, of Westland and Geraud Raymond Austin, 22, of Detroit as two of the men who broke into his home in the area of Ford and Newburgh roads on Sept. 26.

Police said the men terrorized the family for two hours while they stole more than 50 guns from the father and other items in the home.

The teen told the court that he was in his room that night at about 11:45 a.m. playing video games online with a few friends from school when two masked men, one holding a handgun, burst into his room.

The teen said he was communicating with his friends online through a microphone and screamed, "Help, someone call 911!"

The teen said the men then forced him to go into his parents' room across the hall, and lie on the bed facedown with them while another man ransacked their bedroom.

About 50 guns from the homeowner's extensive gun collection were stolen, along with three daggers, jewelry, cash, cameras, the mother's purse and the family vehicle during the course of the robbery.

When the men were later arrested, police recovered 42 of the 52 guns. The guns were mostly Winchester Repeating Arm rifles with gold inlays, which are each valued at about $1,000.

The teen said that before the men left, they tied the family members' ankles together and their hands behind their backs, police said. They also placed socks in their mouths, and placed tape over them and taped their eyes shut.

"One of them said, 'If we get caught, we would send somebody to get you,'" the teen said a robber told him before leaving the home.

"He told us don't move for a half-hour, we'll be watching you, and as soon as I could untie myself I said, 'If they're going to kill me they're going to kill me, I'm going to get the police.'"

The family was able to free themselves and then ran over to a neighbor's home to call police.

Hren, Mastaw and Austin are being held on a $2 million bond. A judge set a $50,000 cash bond for Kirby.

Hren was charged with home invasion, 38 counts of concealing stolen weapons and felony firearms.

Brent was charged with three counts of armed robbery, carjacking, home invasion, three counts of unlawful imprisonment, larceny, felony firearms, commission of a felony with a motor vehicle and a habitual offender.

Austin was charged with six counts of receiving and concealing stolen weapons, home invasion, six counts of larceny of a firearm, felon in possession of a firearm, larceny of a building and a habitual offender.

Kirby was charged with three counts of receiving and concealing stolen firearms, felony in possession of a firearm, felony firearms and a habitual offender.

The teen told the prosecutor that he first saw the suspects' full faces in an article that was on ClickOnDetroit.com.

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