Five St. Albans residents pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday to charges of buying firearms while knowingly providing false information to licensed firearms dealers and then trading those firearms for narcotics.
Laci Baker, 32, Dara Bessette, 37, Sierra Lacoste, 32, Tyson Wells, 40, and Megan West, 32, all of Swanton and St. Albans, are accused of taking part in “straw purchasing” at least 30 firearms for two drug dealers in exchange for cocaine and other narcotics. The dealers then transported the firearms to the Boston area, according to court documents.
St. Albans police contacted special agent Scott Murray of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives in February to assist in an investigation they were conducting into two out-of-state drug dealers selling crack cocaine out of a Swanton residence, Murray wrote in the affidavit.
The drug dealers, identified in court documents as “Target A” and “Target B,” are suspected of being members of the Massachusetts chapter of the Latin Kings gang, regarded as one of the most violent gangs in the United States.
Murray said in the affidavit that he was contacted in June by a ATF agent in Boston who told him police had recovered a handgun after conducting a search of housing projects in South Boston related to gang activity. Two men, Emmanuel Nova, 19, and Alex Valdez, 30, were arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
The handgun was later discovered to have been purchased by Tyson Wells from a gun shop in Franklin, according to court documents.
Wells allegedly bought eleven firearms, mostly semi-automatic handguns, from two gun shops between November 2017 and March 2018.
Gang members in Boston would request specific firearms, and Target A and Target B would procure them through the defendants and transport them down to the city — sometimes gift- wrapping the firearms to make them appear like a present in case they got stopped by police, Murray wrote.
Testimony in the affidavit described how Target A and Target B would tell Wells the type of firearm they wanted and would give him the money to purchase it. Then they would wait for Wells at the Swanton residence.
When he returned, Wells would trade the firearms for crack-cocaine, Target A and Target B would file the serial number off the weapons, then drive down to Boston to distribute the weapons to gang members because “there is a war going on in Boston,” Wells told Murray in the affidavit.
In addition to handguns, Target A and Target B also received an AR-15 style rifle and high capacity magazines from the female defendants in return for crack cocaine and heroin, according to the affidavit.
In late 2017, Lacoste purchased seven firearms, Baker bought nine, and West bought three, according to court documents.
To date, of the 30 known firearms purchased, four have been recovered by Boston police and have been identified as the same firearms purchased by these individuals, Murray wrote.
With Vermont’s relaxed gun-laws and straight shots on the interstates to Western Massachusetts and Boston, these guns for drugs cases are nothing new for the Vermont District Attorney’s office.
“I mean unfortunately the kind of criminal complaint here is not new,” Kevin Doyle, first assistant US Attorney, said in an interview this week. “It is a trend, unfortunately not a new trend, people who are willing to buy firearms in exchange for drugs is not that uncommon unfortunately.”
Doyle added, “These types of fact patterns are of serious concern to the US Attorney’s office and prosecuting those people who are involved in these types of crimes is a priority.”
If convicted, Wells, Bessette, Lacoste, Baker, and West each face a maximum sentence of ten years of prison. The defendants will be in court on Monday for detention hearings at which point the court will determine whether to detain the defendants without bail.
