[A] 21-year-old Hartford, Connecticut, man who allegedly held two Vermont women at gunpoint Christmas Day and forced them to physically fight over a drug debt found himself detained in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Tuesday on charges of distributing cocaine and fentanyl.
“This is a man who is clearly out of control,” U.S. Magistrate Judge John Conroy said of Chyquan Cupe, who faces an additional eight felony and 17 misdemeanor charges in lower Vermont courts.
But the fact Cupe is now in federal custody hasn’t stopped suspicious activity at his former Brattleboro address — a headline-grabbing drug house at 33 Oak St. between a special needs school and residence for single mothers and children.
“I fear for my safety,” said one occupant of the eight-apartment building who asked not to be identified.
Cupe sparked news earlier this winter when Brattleboro police raided the unit where he was said to be squatting Dec. 28 and seized a safe full of cocaine, opioids and amphetamines, as well as a handgun with an obliterated serial number, a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun and several magazines of bullets.
Cupe, however, wasn’t there, prompting an alert that he was “considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached by members of the public.”
Local police arrested Cupe without notifying the public Feb. 7 and held him without bail at Springfield’s Southern State Correctional Facility pending a Tuesday hearing set for Brattleboro. Then a grand jury issued an indictment last Thursday, moving the proceedings to U.S. District Court in Burlington.
“The defendant should be detained, as there are no conditions that can be set to address the potential danger to the community should he be released,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ophardt said in a court motion granted by Conroy. “The defendant has committed numerous violent acts in the Brattleboro community related to his drug trafficking activities, and has been frequently armed.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office used Tuesday’s hearing to share a nearly eight-minute Facebook Live video in which Cupe, waving what looks like a pistol, spouts a curse-laden monologue targeting authorities.
“The cops can’t catch me — they’re stupid,” Cupe is heard saying in the video recorded by police.
Cupe, appearing Tuesday in handcuffs and a prison jumpsuit, occasionally shook his head or held it in his hands as the video played in court.
Cupe’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender David L. McColgin, said his client shouldn’t be detained because he lacked prior convictions and the video didn’t prove the item he was holding was a gun.
“We can’t tell what that is,” McColgin said. “It could be a piece of plastic.”
Brattleboro neighbors of 33 Oak St. aren’t sympathetic. They point to a local court hearing last May where Cupe’s former lawyer reasoned that a judge should lower the accused’s $25,000 bail surrounding earlier charges of assault and burglary because he was living on Oak Street, a tree-lined neighborhood where former Gov. Peter Shumlin owns two apartment buildings.
Since that spring hearing, Cupe was arrested in October and charged with possession of cocaine, resisting arrest and attempting to escape — the latter while handcuffed.
But Cupe was again free last Christmas when he allegedly held two women at gunpoint and forced them to brawl over a $200 drug debt, only to reportedly pull one by the hair two days later and announce “I’m going to beat and kill you right here.”
Local police have continued to receive calls about 33 Oak St. since Cupe’s arrest. Residents woke over Presidents’ Day weekend to find the words “we sell drugs” spray-painted on the house and retired the night of Feb. 19 to hear what sounded like gunfire. That spurred authorities to temporarily close the street and now circle with cruisers daily. But residents note that once the patrols leave, the traffic resumes.
Said one frustrated occupant: “I’m paying rent to have drug deals constantly happen.”