AUSTIN, Texas _ Cody Wilson has quit as CEO of the 3D-printed gun company Defense Distributed after recent sexual assault charges were filed against him.
During a news conference on Tuesday, Paloma Heindorff, the company's vice president of operations, said Wilson tendered his resignation on Friday evening, and that he will have no role in the company in the future.
She will take his place as director.
"I am extremely proud to say that over the past few days the entire team a Defense Distributed has recommitted to enabling the sharing and publication of CAD and 3D-printed firearms,' Heindorff said. "This resilience, I truly believe to not only been characteristic of our company as a whole, but also the ideas that we have worked so hard to promote."
Heindorff would not answer questions about Wilson's sexual assault case, referring all inquiries to his private attorneys. She said the company would not be paying for any of his legal expenses.
She also said the company had not been affected by the scandal and has received about 3,000 orders for its weapon plans since it was banned by a federal court last month from posting them online. She said her team has been "shipping them out like crazy."
"I cannot be more proud of my team right now," she said. "We didn't miss a beat. No one blinked. No one has missed a day at work. We've all come in. We're still shipping. We have no intention of stopping."
Heindorff said she previously worked as a creative in New York City before moving to Austin to work for the nonprofit Defense Distributed, which employs about 20 people, because she believed in its mission.
She called its efforts to fight the federal government the "most elegant and effective activism" she had ever seen.
She said the company would continue on the same track to make its 3D-printed gun plans publicly available online, despite Wilson's leaving the company.
"He's been an incredibly powerful figurehead," she said. "But this is about an idea."
Defense Distributed has raised about $400,000 to fight the federal court case against it.
Attorney John Blackman would not say whether the company planned to appeal the federal court decision, saying only, "stay tuned."
"We are confident that we will prevail," Blackman said. "We have the First and Second amendments on our side."
Wilson, 30, was released from the Harris County Jail in Houston on Sunday after posting $150,000 bail, records show.
He had been arrested two days earlier at a hotel in the Wanhua District of Taipei, where authorities said he fled after learning he was being investigated by police.
Wilson, 30, is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who he met on the website SugarDaddyMeet.com in August, an arrest affidavit filed against him in Travis County alleges.
The affidavit says Wilson met the girl at a South Austin coffee shop, then took her to the Archer hotel in North Austin, where she said he paid her $500 after they had sex.
