An East Hartford man is being held without bond while facing federal fentanyl trafficking charges and a charge that he possessed guns after being convicted of felonies, including two stolen handguns and a third handgun with an obliterated serial number, authorities said.
DRUG CASE
DEFENDANTS: David Quintana, 35, of East Hartford; Edgar Quintana, 33, of Hartford.
CHARGES: Both charged with conspiring to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl and with individual fentanyl sales. David is also charged with possessing guns after being convicted of felonies.
STATUS: David is held without bond. Edgar is free on $150,000 bond.
The man, David Quintana, 35, lived in an apartment at 50 Columbus Circle, according to an affidavit by a Hartford police officer assigned to a task force led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Facing fentanyl trafficking charges along with Quintana is his brother, Edgar Quintana, 33, of Hartford, who was released on $150,000 bond after both brothers were arrested April 17, authorities said.
The brothers are charged with conspiring to distribute 40 grams or more of fentanyl, which carries five to 40 years in prison.
David Quintana is also charged with selling fentanyl to a government informant three times in March and April, and Edgar Quintana is charged with involvement in two of the sales. Only David is named in the gun possession count of an indictment approved by a federal grand jury in late April.
The individual sales each carry up to 20 years in prison, and the gun count carries up to 15 years, authorities said.
The felony convictions that make David Quintana ineligible to possess a gun were for selling narcotics in 2009 and possessing them in 2006, according to the indictment.
David Quintana didn’t contest a prosecution motion to hold him without bond at an initial hearing the day he was arrested, but he reserved the right to contest his detention later, according to a brief order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert A. Richardson.
The investigation that led to the arrests started when a Hartford police informant told authorities about a man selling fentanyl, whom he identified only by the telephone number he used to reach him, according to the affidavit by Hartford police Officer Garrett Fancher of the DEA task force.
The phone number was associated with a woman, and internal police records showed several police encounters with her at which David Quintana was present, Fancher reported. The informant was shown a photograph of David Quintana and identified him as the fentanyl trafficker he had spoken of, according to the officer.
The officer went on to describe four fentanyl sales to the informant, three of which became the basis for sale counts in the indictment. In two cases, David Quintana stopped on the way to his meeting with the informant at the Hartford Housing Authority complex on Mary Shepard Place and picked up a man later identified as Edgar Quintana, who rode with him to the sales, the officer reported.
Authorities used similar techniques to identify Edgar Quintana as they had used to identify his brother.
Edgar Quintana had gotten something out of a car before joining his brother on the way to the first sale, and the car was registered to a woman who had been involved in incidents with him documented in Hartford police records, the officer reported. Once authorities had identified Edgar as the suspect, they showed his picture to the informant, who confirmed the identification, according to the officer.
Searches of the brothers’ apartments on April 17 produced the three guns in David Quintana’s East Hartford apartment and “distribution quantities of fentanyl, cocaine and crack cocaine” in Edgar Quintana’s Hartford apartment.
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