{news} Family Man, Addict, Prisoner

[clifford thornton]

      "If one does not understand racism, classism, white privilege, terrorism, and the war on drugs--what these terms mean--how these concepts work, then everything else you do understand will only confuse you" 

      http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-dyer0714.artjul14,0,3762011.story?coll=hc-headlines-home<http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-dyer0714.artjul14,0,3762011.story?coll=hc-headlines-home>

      CONNECTICUT NEWS 

Family Man, Addict, Prisoner
 Canton Father Gets 37 Months For Selling Weapons For Drugs
July 14, 2006 
By LYNNE TUOHY, COURANT STAFF WRITER 

      NEW HAVEN -- Robert Dyer is 50, white, a doting husband and father and lifelong Canton resident with an impressive work record.

      He also was feeding high-powered weapons into the arsenal on Hartford's streets to sate his escalating hunger for drugs.

      At Dyer's sentencing before Senior U.S. District Judge Ellen Bree Burns Thursday, a federal prosecutor expressed incredulity at the outpouring of support for Dyer by friends, neighbors and colleagues. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Leaming mused what the scenario would be if the same crime bore a different face.

      "I wonder if it was a Hartford man - a father, son, brother, neighbor - who had a drug addiction and decided he would put guns into the hands of a known drug dealer and convicted felon in the town of Canton, knowing that that gun would be used in a crime of violence or wind up in the hands of a child, would they be here," Leaming queried during the proceeding. "I suspect they would say, `37 to 46 months, is that all he gets?'"

      That was the range Dyer faced, and Burns refused to drop below it, saying it seems a day doesn't go by when there isn't a report of at least one fatal shooting in one of Connecticut's cities.

      "The public needs to be aware of the fact the courts take these crimes very seriously," Burns said before sentencing Dyer to 37 months. He is scheduled to surrender to U.S. marshals Aug. 3.

      Dyer's wife, Carol, wept quietly during the nearly hour-long sentencing proceeding, though Dyer himself showed no visible reaction when he learned his fate. He spoke briefly during the hearing.

      "I did a very bad thing," he said. "I'm very sorry.

      "I just feel so bad for my family," Dyer added. "If I have to go for a long time, I don't know what they'll do. I've never done anything like that; I'll never do it again."

      Andrea Comer, president of the African American Alliance and a longtime Hartford activist, later said Dyer's case is just the latest in a string of crimes involving suburbanites coming into Hartford to exchange guns or cash for drugs. She noted the arrest earlier this year of East Windsor chiropractor David Muska, also an admitted drug addict, who faces federal charges of exchanging guns for drugs on Hartford's streets.

      "It's amazing how it seems people have no remorse about destroying a community that's not theirs, and we get labeled as `the bad place.' .. I think it's unfortunate that, too often, the city is where suburban folks come to do their dirt," Comer said.

      Dyer's lawyer, Alan J. Sobol, argued vigorously for a sentence involving little or no incarceration, citing Dyer's role as his family's sole source of financial support. Dyer's wife stays home to care for the couple's seriously disabled 23-year-old daughter, Jessica. Another daughter, 21-year-old Joan, also lives with them and commutes to college.

      "His judgment was clearly clouded by his involvement in drugs," Sobol said, but stressed that Dyer maintained a sterling work record at various trucking firms in the Hartford area.

      "He's the sole provider. The family has enormous debt," Sobol said.

      Dyer's family goes back generations in Canton, and remains tight-knit. Two of his siblings spoke about what a loving and generous man Dyer is, and how he cared for their elderly mother until her death last year.

      But substance abuse has nagged Dyer since his teen years, Sobol wrote in a sentencing memorandum. At 15 he was drinking a six-pack of beer and smoking marijuana on a daily basis. At 30 he added cocaine to the mix; at 40, heroin. At 45 he became addicted to crack cocaine.

      He and a friend, Joseph Duffy of East Hartford, were indicted last September on charges of selling weapons and ammunition to their drug supplier in Hartford, who agreed to become a confidential witness to possibly lessen his exposure on crimes he faced. The informant is not identified in the indictment.

      During a two-month investigation, FBI agents tracked the informant as he purchased weapons and ammunition from Duffy, who was supplied the items by Dyer. The weapons included an assault rifle and a shotgun, with serial numbers partially obliterated, and three banana-style magazines of assault ammunition. Firearms experts were able to discern the serial numbers and trace the guns to Dyer. One of the magazines bore a fingerprint matching Dyer's.

      When Dyer was arrested in September, federal agents seized from his home seven rifles and assault weapons, high capacity magazines and more than 11,000 rounds of ammunition. Dyer pleaded guilty in March to engaging in the business of dealing firearms without a license and possession of a firearm by an unlawful drug user.

      Federal prosecutors in their sentencing memorandum noted that in 2005, more than 200 people were charged with possession of a firearm in Hartford, and more than 350 guns were seized. One weapon seized from a convicted felon in an unrelated arrest was traced to Dyer.

      "These arrests beg the question: From where do they come and how do they arrive," Leaming wrote of how guns get to Hartford. "From over the mountain and through the woods, literally and figuratively, [Dyer] trafficked guns to his friend, Joe Duffy, to sell to their drug supplier."

      Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez said Dyer and others like him think they're committing victimless crimes.

      "They don't see the harm. They're not the ones doing the shooting," Perez said of Dyer. "What this does is put guns into the hands of the most dangerous criminals in our city. These are people who are profiting from dealing drugs. They use the guns not only to conduct their trade but to set a tone of intimidation. The guns get used for retaliation when drug deals go bad. This is like a cancer that grows."

      Contact Lynne Tuohy at ltuohy at courant.com.

      A discussion of this story with Courant Staff Writer Lynne Tuohy is scheduled to be shown on New England Cable News each hour today between 9 a.m. and noon.  




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