Man Charged With Using Racist Messaging Channel to Sell Guns From Prison

A Texas man was charged on Tuesday with selling firearms and parts through an online channel that promoted white-supremacist beliefs even as he was serving time in a Louisiana federal prison on previous gun charges.

The man, Hayden Espinosa, 24, advertised the guns on Telegram, a free encrypted messaging app, Manhattan prosecutors said. Mr. Espinosa moderated the channel, which they said was a “hub for racially and ethnically motivated extremism.”

Mr. Espinosa, who sold firearm and gun parts to a New York Police Department undercover officer, prosecutors said, was charged with four felony counts of transporting a firearm and one of attempted criminal sale of a firearm.

He was released from his federal prison term on June 4 and was immediately arrested on the New York charges. Mr. Espinosa is expected to be extradited to New York later this month and arraigned on June 24.

“We see this sad and tragic combination far too often — the intersection of gun violence and gun trafficking and hate and extremism,” Alvin L. Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The investigation by city and federal agencies that led to Tuesday’s charges began after investigators discovered in summer 2023 that Mr. Espinosa was selling firearms to members of the Telegram channel using cellphones smuggled behind bars, the district attorney’s office said.