Forest Hills woman fights year-long battle against fake gun charges
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Officers from the 112th Precinct pose with guns seized from the home of a Forest Hills woman in December 2019. All but one of the guns is fake. The real firearm is missing several key components, according to NYPD analysis. The woman is still facing a first-degree weapons possession charge. Photo via NYPD 112th Precinct/Twitter
By David Brand
NYPD officers acting on a tip last December raided the home of Elizaveta Zlatkis and found a cache of guns scattered around her Forest Hills apartment. The next day, cops from the 112th Precinct arranged the 22 seized weapons on a table and posed for a Twitter photo commemorating the bust.
Queens prosecutors charged Zlatkis, 31, with first-degree criminal possession of a weapon — a charge that carries a possible 25-year prison sentence — and a few local news outlets covered the case.
There was just one problem with the narrative and the charges: 21 of the 22 supposed firearms were airsoft rifles, toy replicas or starter pistols — the kind used at track meets — incapable of firing ammunition, according to the NYPD’s own laboratory reports.
The one actual firearm was rendered “inoperable” because the trigger, hand grip and internal components were all missing, according to the NYPD’s firearms analysis.
But a year after her Dec. 27, 2019 arrest, Zlatkis is still facing the first-degree weapons charge, which is based on possession of ten or more firearms. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz has declined to drop the case against Zlatkis, who has refused to take a plea deal.
The case has made her life hell, she said. A quick Google search of her uncommon name reveals why. The first six results are news articles about her arrest.
Friends from high school have posted those articles on Facebook and she decided to turn down an initial job offer after she learned about the company’s intensive background checks, Zlatkis said.
“I look completely crazy,” Zltakis told the Eagle. “It’s humiliating.”
She and her husband Elvis Selimi loan the guns to rappers and producers to use in music videos, she said. Zltakis even appears in the background of at least one of the videos for a song by the artist Tay Spades.
“We do videos with them as props,” said Rosedale rapper Crucial, who has become friends with Zlatkis and Selimi. “I didn’t know you could actually get in trouble with all that. That’s wild. They’re fake.”
Zlatkis is also charged with eight misdemeanors for possessing ammunition and endangering a child, a charge related to the alleged weapons offenses. Semini has been charged with a handful of misdemeanors.
After spending a night in the 112th Precinct following her arrest last year, Zltakis was released on her own recognizance at arraignment. The judge recognized the absurdity of the charges even then, said her attorney Joe Murray.
“Not a single gun was real,” said Murray, who ran for Queens DA in 2019.
“I want to clear her name. She’s not a gangster.”
The Queens District Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment about the case.*
The commanding officer for the 112th Precinct referred questions to the NYPD’s press office.
“Firearms were recovered on Friday, December 27, 2019 in regard to a search warrant and deemed inoperable at a later date,” said Detective Denise Moroney, an NYPD spokesperson.
A year after the bust, the photo of the officers posing with the phony firearms lives on on Twitter, though several commenters have pointed out that they’re fakes.
”Almost all of them appear to be pellet and airsoft,” wrote one commenter.
“Cool when’s the airsoft party,” added another.
*Editor’s note: Queens DA Melinda Katz has not responded to requests from this reporter since taking office Jan. 1, 2020.
