WESTFIELD – A man is back in jail after he was arraigned Friday for five counts of larceny of a firearm.
In May, 2014, Det. Brian Freeman reports in a court document, a caseworker for Highland Valley Elder Services called city police to report that client who could not speak for herself had been the victim of the theft of several firearms.
Freeman found that the victim’s husband had recently died and the victim had previously complained that some of his family members had been removing property from his home without permission.
Freeman’s investigation into the theft of the firearms found a family member who reported that another family member, Timothy J. Lynch, 20, of 88 Harby Road, West Springfield, had been seen removing “several rifles and bows that where wrapped in a trash bag from the home.”
Freeman reports that, in July, Lynch was found to be in possession of two shotguns, two rifles and “part of a rifle with Nazi markings (still able to be fired)” and a criminal complaint was filed for five charges of larceny of a firearm.
He said that one of the rifles, a 1893 Marlin lever action rifle, was a valuable gun worth as much as $2,500.
Because he had not been issued a firearms identification card Lynch was also charged with possession of firearms without a FID card.
Lynch was summoned to court to answer the charges and was arraigned on Friday.
Judge Philip A. Contant ordered bail in the amount of $100 by Lynch’s situation was more complicated because he was free on $5,000 bail ordered in a case pending in Hampden Superior Court.
In that case Lynch had pleaded not guilty to charges of armed and masked robbery and conspiracy stemming from an incident in the city on Dec. 15, 2013.
Lynch and three companions had been taken into custody less than an hour after the Stop & Go convenience store on Mill Street had been robbed at gunpoint.
At the time, police reported that one member of the crew, allegedly Lynch, had gone inside to check out the store before a second member of the gang went inside. The second man, reportedly wearing a hooded sweatshirt backwards with eyeholes cut into the hood, then entered the store and menaced the clerk with a gun.
The robbers reportedly stole about $100 in cash and eight or nine packs of cigarettes before they fled in a waiting car.
However, the fleeing vehicle was spotted traveling eastbound on East Main Street by Officer Joseph Maxton and the operator stopped on the memorial bridge.
One occupant fled but all four were soon in custody.
A BB gun was found in the car.
Lynch was arraigned in Westfield District Court but the charges there were dismissed when he was indicted and arraigned in Superior Court in February.
On Friday, when he was arraigned on the firearms charges, Judge Contant allowed a prosecution motion to revoke his $5,000 bail in the superior court case and he was held in that case.
He is due to return to district court for a pretrial hearing on Feb. 9.
