31 Guns, 5 Felons: Salt Lake City Storage Unit Heist Unravels

SALT LAKE CITY – Thirty-one stolen firearms are at the center of a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday, charging five Utah men with possession of illegal weapons. The guns were pilfered during a December 2012 burglary at a Diamond Storage facility on Redwood Road, and the subsequent investigation has revealed a network of convicted felons allegedly involved in the theft and possession of the stolen goods.

Facing charges are Todd Shawn Cook, age 38, of West Bountiful; John Trenton Boren, age 40, of Salt Lake City; John David Hobbs, age 30, and Robert Lee Biggs, age 49, both of West Valley City; and Kenneth Richard Cahoon, age 38, of Centerville. All five defendants are charged with possession of the stolen firearms and possession of firearms by a restricted person – a particularly damning charge given their prior felony convictions.

The case began to crack open on January 10, 2013, when Salt Lake City Police responded to the Diamond Storage facility to investigate a reported burglary. The lock on one unit had been forcibly cut, and contents were missing. However, the initial break came earlier, on January 2, 2013, with the arrest of Robert Lee Biggs, who was found in possession of a stolen vehicle and seven of the firearms that would later be linked to the storage unit burglary. Biggs, already a convicted felon, had no legal right to possess any of the weapons.

As the investigation deepened, law enforcement pieced together evidence suggesting a wider conspiracy. Authorities allege that John Trenton Boren, John David Hobbs, and Todd Shawn Cook were directly involved in the original burglary. Kenneth Richard Cahoon and Robert Lee Biggs are then accused of subsequently taking possession of some of the stolen firearms. Adding another layer to the case, investigators discovered that John David Hobbs had rented a storage unit adjacent to the burglarized one and accessed the property on December 20, 2012 – the likely date of the initial break-in.

A multi-agency task force, including the ATF, Salt Lake City Police, Grantsville Police, the Bountiful Police Department, and the Davis County Metro Narcotics Unit, collaborated on the investigation. This case is being prosecuted under the umbrella of Utah Project Safe Neighborhoods, a federal initiative specifically targeting gun violence and gang activity within the state. The potential penalty for each count is substantial: up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. All five defendants are currently in custody.

John Trenton Boren is scheduled for a detention hearing Thursday at 10:30 a.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Warner. John David Hobbs will follow with his own detention hearing at 2 p.m. before the same judge. It’s crucial to remember that an indictment is not a declaration of guilt; these men are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. However, with 31 stolen firearms and a trail of prior convictions, the feds appear to have a solid case to present.