Misdemeanor for Lewes Beach gun case

A Maryland man who was arrested in September 2025 for having a large amount of weapons in a truck on Lewes Beach resolved his case in December with a guilty plea to one count of possession of a large-capacity magazine.

Lewes police responded at 12:30 a.m., Sept. 23, to a report of a man possibly suffering from mental health issues on Savannah Road. That man was Alexander Gard, 30, who told police his truck had been stolen hours earlier from the Wawa on Route 1. Gard told police he was looking for his pickup truck but declined to report it stolen when officers offered to take him to Delaware State Police Troop 7. Gard told police he would contact a friend to pick him up.

Later that same morning, officers responded to Lewes Beach for a report of a Ford Ranger stranded in the sand near the water. The pickup was unsecured with no occupants, police said, and the license plates had been removed. A computer check revealed the truck belonged to Gard. The pickup was towed. Inside, police said, they found three 9mm handguns, a tactical 12-gauge shotgun, an AR-15-style scoped rifle, multiple edged weapons, brass knuckles, a bow and several hundred rounds of ammunition. Police then began searching for Gard.

While that was going on, Cape Henlopen School District officials placed area schools in a secure status. Members of the Lewes Police Department quickly followed several leads and, using social media, learned that Gard was staying at an Airbnb outside Lewes. Officers from Lewes Police Department, with the assistance of Delaware State Police, responded to a location on Minos Conaway Road about 10:30 a.m., and Gard was taken into custody without incident.

Gard had police records in Virginia and Maryland, and was charged in Delaware with five counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, six counts of possession of a firearm or ammunition by a person prohibited due to prior violent felony crime, and possession of a large-capacity magazine. Lewes Police Chief Thomas Spell later said there was no evidence Gard had any larger intent or plan. 

Mat Marshall, spokesman for the Delaware Department of Justice, said the problem for prosecutors trying the case was that the charges were circular. For example, in the case of assault, a possession during a felony and the assault are two distinct crimes. But while possession by a person prohibited is a felony, its application as an underlying charge on a possession during the commission of a felony is redundant, Marshall said, in that both rely on the same fact of possession of a firearm. 

Marshall said the possession during the commission of a felony charges were dismissed during preliminary hearings, leaving the possession of a firearm by a person prohibited. 

“The DOJ’s subsequent review of the facts showed that the defendant was not prohibited in Delaware,” Marshall said. “Gard was charged with PFBPP [possession of a firearm by a person prohibited] because he was found to be on probation in Maryland with a no-firearms condition, but his probation stemmed from a ‘dog at large’ charge, which is a misdemeanor in Maryland and did not support prohibition. He had no felony or violent criminal record in Delaware or in any other state that would have prohibited him [from firearm possession]. Accordingly, the PFBPP charges were unsupported, leaving the large-capacity magazine charge.”

The large-capacity magazine charge is a misdemeanor in Delaware, and Gard was sentenced to a period of probation.