By REBECCA EVERETT
@GazetteRebecca
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — The former Pelham police chief charged with pointing a gun at a friend and improperly storing more than 22 guns at his home is scheduled to be tried in September, unless his attorney can get a judge to dismiss the charges.
Edward Fleury, 57, of 10 King St., Pelham, was in Hampshire Superior Court yesterday as his attorney, Patrick J. Melnik Jr. of Northampton, told Judge Bertha D. Josephson he plans to file motions to dismiss the case and to suppress evidence the Commonwealth intends to use against his client.
Melnik did not specify on what grounds he would argue the motions, and declined to comment after court.
Josephson told him he should file the motions by the end of June and be ready to argue them in court in July. The case’s final pre-trial conference is Aug. 26, and the trial is set for September.
Fleury has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault with a dangerous weapon, 21 counts of improper storage of a large-capacity firearm, and one count of improper storage of a firearm.
According to court documents, Belchertown police charged Fleury with assault with a dangerous weapon after his friend, Peter Terapulsky of Pelham, reported that Fleury pointed a handgun with a laser sight at his chest while they were talking casually with friends outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars bar in Belchertown on Aug. 2.
When police searched Fleury’s home Sept. 11 for the gun, documents state, officers found 21 large-capacity firearms and more than one non-large-capacity firearm. All of the guns were unsecured, police said.
The guns are now being held in the Pelham Police Station, where Fleury served as chief from 1991 to 2009. He resigned after 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn. accidentally killed himself when he lost control of an Uzi submachine gun at a 2008 Westfield firearms exhibition that Fleury organized.
He was acquitted of manslaughter in connection with Bizilj’s death in 2011.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected].
