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Posted:Today
Updated: 12:44 AM
Maine men linked to Boston Marathon bomber's gun
The gun passed from Danny Sun Jr. of Gorham to Biniam Tsegai of Portland,
but it remains unclear how it came into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's hands.
By Scott Dolan sdolan_at_pressherald.com
Staff Writer
Two Maine men are named in a newspaper report as the sources of a gun
purchased in Maine and used by Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan
Tsarnaev to kill a campus police officer three days after the bombings in
April 2013.
click image to enlarge
Biniam Tsegai, one of the men who possessed a firearm that ended up in
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev's hands, is familiar to
law enforcement officials in Maine. Tsegai's criminal record includes
charges of disorderly conduct and failure to submit in connection with a
six-hour police standoff at the Riverton Apartments, above, in July 2011.
Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
click image to enlarge
Danny Sun Jr.
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Federal authorities first connected Danny Sun Jr. of Gorham and Biniam
Tsegai of Portland to the Ruger P95 9 mm semiautomatic handgun more than a
year ago. The information was first revealed in a story published Tuesday
in the Los Angeles Times, which cited an unreleased Department of Justice
document.
Sun, 26, bought the Ruger, along with other guns, at Cabela's outdoor
supply store in Scarborough on Nov. 27, 2011.
Sun told police under questioning at the Cumberland County Jail last year
that he gave the gun to Tsegai, an immigrant from the African country of
Eritrea who has an extensive criminal history in Maine. It remains unclear
how the gun then ended up in Tsarnaev's possession.
Tsegai, 27, also known as Icy, is scheduled to be brought to U.S. District
Court in Portland on Thursday to plead guilty to a crack cocaine
trafficking conspiracy charge.
Tsegai's attorney, Thomas Dyhrberg, said Tuesday that he was unaware of any
connection between his client and Tsarnaev, and declined to comment further.
Through officials at the county jail, Tsegai refused the Portland Press
Herald's request for an interview Tuesday.
Sun did not respond to phone messages Tuesday and no one answered the door
at his home, at 74 Spiller Road in Gorham.
At a rental home on Broadway in South Portland where Sun lived previously,
a man who answered the door said Sun left that home about a year ago. The
resident, who declined to be identified, said that shortly after he started
renting the home in 2013, police showed up at his door at 5 a.m., asking
for the whereabouts of an acquaintance of Sun. The resident said he told
police he didn't know the person.
Records at the Cumberland County Courthouse indicate that Sun was charged
by South Portland police last month with leaving the scene of a motor
vehicle accident that caused property damage. A state database indicates he
has no criminal record in Maine.
Tsegai was targeted in a drug investigation by the FBI from November 2010
to February 2012, and is accused in court documents of being the leader of
a drug trafficking ring in Portland. Federal authorities received
authorization for two wiretaps on cellphones used by the drug ring,
according to documents filed in federal court in Portland this year by
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Conley.
"These wire intercepts, combined with testimony of several cooperating
witnesses, would establish that during the dates of the charged conspiracy,
Biniam Tsegai (1) received orders for user-level quantities of crack
cocaine from Hamadi Hassan's customers; (2) delivered crack cocaine to
Hamadi Hassan's customers after they had placed orders with Hamadi Hassan;
and (3) packaged and prepared crack cocaine for sale and distribution after
it had been brought to Maine from Boston," Conley wrote, naming Tsegai and
a man with whom Tsegai is alleged to have worked with in selling drugs.
Cmdr. Scott Pelletier, head of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency in the
southern part of the state, said he is familiar with Tsegai, who was part
of a group of young men in Portland who were often involved in drug
activity.
"He's a bad guy, no doubt about it," Pelletier said. "We've dealt with him
for years."
Before the crack cocaine case, Tsegai's criminal record included mainly
misdemeanor convictions, such as disorderly conduct, according to a state
database and federal court records.
He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and failure to submit
in connection with a six-hour police standoff in July 2011 at the Riverton
Apartments, a public housing project off Forest Avenue in Portland, after
police got a report of a woman who was injured by suspects who police
believed had guns.
The Los Angeles Times says authorities believe Tsarnaev's ties to Maine's
drug trade helped him finance a six-month trip to the Russian republics of
Chechnya and Dagestan in 2012 that inspired the Boston Marathon bombings,
but Maine court records and attorneys for those charged in the case against
Tsegai indicate the drug ring that Tsegai is accused of operating had no
known connection to Tsarnaev.
The cases against two other people charged with conspiracy in the cocaine
ring, Hamadi Hassan and Lacey Armstrong, are still pending. Each
defendant's attorney said that Tsarnaev's name does not appear in the
evidence against their clients.
"There is absolutely no connection between Tsarnaev and Miss Armstrong,"
said Armstrong's attorney, Sarah Churchill.
Hassan's attorney, Luke Rioux, said his client has no known ties to
Tsarnaev and the gun isn't mentioned in prosecutors' case against Hassan.
"It certainly wasn't on my radar or anyone else's, as far as I know," Rioux
said of Tsegai's connection to the gun. "The case here in Portland is
strictly a crack cocaine trafficking case."
Staff Writer Joe Lawlor contributed to this report.
Scott Dolan can be contacted at 791-6304 or at:sdolan_at_pressherald.comTwitter:
_at_scottddolan
Received on Wed May 14 2014 - 08:45:44 EDT