The Camden County Sheriff's Office likely won't face any sanctions for a controversial arms transaction it made with security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, the county attorney said Friday.

John Morrison said he has examined the agreements Blackwater signed with the sheriff's office in 2005 to purchase and store automatic rifles for the department, and he's seen nothing to indicate that Camden did anything wrong. He also noted that the sheriff's office moved quickly to register the weapons after they were purchased.

"I do not have any indication that the Camden sheriff's Department is in hot water," Morrison said. "There are no criminal allegations against the Camden Sheriff's Department, or any member of that department. I have no reason to believe there will be."

Morrison made the remarks in the wake of a federal raid on the armory at Blackwater's Moyock headquarters earlier this week.

Executing a search warrant, agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Tuesday confiscated a number of AK-47s and Bushmaster automatic weapons that are registered to the Camden Sheriff's Department.

The private security contractor financed the purchase of 17 Romanian AK-47s and 17 Bushmaster rifles for the department in June 2005, but then turned around and agreed to store most of the weapons in its armory.

Camden Sheriff Tony Perry has said his department was initially interested in using the AK-47s for its fledgling SWAT team. After determining the weapons weren't useful for that purpose, however, he decided to use the Bushmasters instead and store the AK-47s at Blackwater.

The agreement has drawn scrutiny because it may sidestep federal laws prohibiting private parties from possessing automatic weapons that were registered after May 1986.

Under federal law, only government agencies — military or law enforcement — are allowed to acquire and possess automatic weapons that were registered after May 1986. In addition, it is illegal for a person to receive or possess an automatic weapon that is not registered to that person in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.

All 34 of the weapons seized in Tuesday's raid are registered to the Camden sheriff's office but most are being stored at Blackwater. It is not clear when the weapons were manufactured.

According to copies of documents obtained by The Daily Advance, Jon Worthington, a major in the Camden Sheriff's Department, signed two agreements with Blackwater CEO Gary Jackson on June 16, 2005.

One of the agreements states that Blackwater would keep 16 of the 17 AK-47 rifles in the armory under lock and key for the Camden sheriff's office. The other AK-47 would be assigned to Worthington, who had been trained and qualified in the rifle's use. At the time, Worthington was a part-time firearms instructor for Blackwater. He stopped working for the company in November 2007.

The other agreement states that Blackwater would keep 15 of the 17 Bushmasters under lock and key and assign the other two to Camden deputies trained to use them.

Both agreements gave the sheriff's office "unlimited access" to the rifles "for training and qualification and state of emergency use." The agreements also give Blackwater the right to terminate the arrangement by filing a letter with the sheriff or his designee.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Thursday that the security contractor didn't do anything wrong by agreeing to store Camden's weapons at its armory.

"All aspects of our contract with ... (the Camden) Sheriff's Department are valid and lawful," she said in an e-mail. "As a company that is fully licensed to sell, provide training on, or even manufacture weapons — including machine guns — we have worked closely with the ATF to ensure we are in compliance with all applicable federal firearms laws. We look forward to cooperating with the government to resolve this allegation."

Tyrrell also noted that ATF officials were aware of the agreement with the Camden Sheriff's Office because the federal agency just conducted an inventory of Blackwater's weapons last August.

"Some of the same ATF agents involved in the current inquiry have long been aware of this arrangement as a result of visits to our facility and audits of our firearms programs at Blackwater's request," she said.

Morrison said it was not necessary for the ATF agents to execute a search warrant to take the weapons from Blackwater's vault.

"If (the sheriff's department) had been asked, we would have voluntary provided the weapons, because we are complying and cooperating with their (the U.S. Attorney's Office) investigation," Morrison said.

Robin Zier, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Raleigh, said she could not even confirm that the federal government was investigating the agreement, let alone answer questions about why ATF agents decided to raid Blackwater and why they had waited three years after the agreements were signed to do so.

"I cannot confirm or deny whether an investigation is going on or not. I can't answer those questions for you," she said.