Meet Hector “Big Weasel” Marroquin. He’s 51 years old, a life-long resident of Los Angeles, and a famous “former” street gang leader who “reformed” himself by swearing off violence and “insisting” that the streets be cleared of handguns. Note all the air-quotes.

According to around 75 different media sources, The City of Los Angeles has given Hector’s “NO GUNS” program (founded in 1996) a total of $1.5 million in recent years, banking on his promise, it seems, to rid the gang culture of illegal firearms.

Oops.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

The director of the antigang organization No Guns, which the city of Los Angeles once paid $1.5 million to steer Latino youths away from a life of crime, pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally selling assault weapons to federal undercover officers.

Hector “Big Weasel” Marroquin, 51, was sentenced to eight years in prison …

In one case, Marroquin sold a MAK-90 semi-automatic assault rifle out of his bar, Marroking Seafood and Bar on Atlantic Avenue in Cudahy, to a confidential informant for the firearms bureau [BATF], authorities said.

He also sold a Ewbank 7.62-millimeter assault rifle to the confidential informant and a M-11, similar to an Uzi, to an undercover bureau agent …

“Prior to his arrest last June,” adds KNBC News, “Marroquin was also arrested in 2006 on weapons charges. His son, an 18th Street gang member, pleaded no contest to home-invasion robbery last year and was sentenced to state prison.”