By REBECCA EVERETT
@GazetteRebecca
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — Former Pelham police chief Edward Fleury asked a Hampshire Superior Court judge Tuesday to throw out evidence about improperly stored guns that police collected when they searched his home Sept. 11, 2014.
Judge Daniel A. Ford heard arguments for roughly 40 minutes before announcing he would issue a ruling at a later date.
Fleury, 58, of Pelham, 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. Those charges were returned by a grand jury in December
Also on Tuesday, he was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to five new counts of improper storage of a firearm resulting from a grand jury indictment this month. Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Matthew D. Thomas said the new charges were related to five guns that were found during the same search on Sept. 11, 2014.
According to court documents, Fleury is accused of pointing a handgun with a laser sight at Peter Terapulsky’s chest while the friends were chatting outside the Veterans of Foreign Wars bar in Belchertown on Aug. 2, 2014. Terapulsky reported the assault a few days later, and Fleury was arrested at the Pelham police station the morning of Sept. 11, 2014. About an hour later, police executed a search warrant at his home, looking for the gun allegedly used in the assault, and found approximately 240 guns littered around the home, including dozens that were unlocked or unsecured.
Fleury’s attorney, Patrick J. Melnik Jr. of Northampton, argued Tuesday that the search of Fleury’s home at 10 King St. was illegal. He said the search warrant police obtained allowed the police to search for a “Glock handgun with or without a laser sight.”
Since they recovered a Glock handgun without a laser sight on Fleury when they arrested him, they had the object described in the search warrant and should not have gone on to search his home an hour later, Melnik argued. He said the laser sight could be removed from the gun, so its absence did not mean it was not the gun Terapulsky described.
Police did find a Glock handgun with a laser sight at his home, court records show.
Melnik also argued that the search warrant was invalid because it was “overly broad” and was delayed for no apparent reason, as police did not apply for it until over a month after the alleged assault.
Thomas said that while police recovered one handgun from Fleury at the police station, they still had reason to believe he had another gun with a laser sight that would match the description provided by Terapulsky. “It’s good police work to go follow up on this laser sight,” Thomas said.
Thomas also showed Ford a photograph of the gun with the laser sight, and said it appeared to be a permanent part of the gun. “It’s not something from the ‘Terminator’ movies,” he said, that could pop up when needed and then disappear. Ford agreed that it looked permanent, but Fleury shook his head vigorously and Melnik disagreed.
Thomas also said the search warrant included a provision allowing officers to search for “other evidence” relevant to the case, which would have been enough to allow them to search the home even if the gun found on Fleury at the station was the one they sought.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in October, and a final pretrial hearing was scheduled for Oct. 27.
Fleury was the Pelham police chief from 1991 to 2009, but resigned after an 8-year-old boy accidentally killed himself at a 2008 Westfield firearms exhibition that Fleury organized. A jury in 2011 acquitted Fleury of manslaughter in connection with the death of Christopher Bizilj.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected].
