Ellington Man Gets 5 Years In Gun-For-Drugs Trade

ELLINGTON, CT - A 25-year-old has been sentenced to a little more than five years in prison for stealing a gun and trading it to his heroin dealer for drugs and cash, federal authorities announced on Monday.

United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut Dierdre Daly announced that Justin Ashline of Ellington was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport to 61 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.

Daly said that, according to court documents and statements made in court, on May 23, 2014, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Drug Enforcement Administration teamed up with Hartford police to execute a search warrant at the Hartford residence of Roman Pantojas, who was known to be an "armed heroin dealer."

During the search, officers seized approximately 700 "baggies" of heroin, two loaded handguns and Pantojas’s cellular telephone, Daly said.

The investigation revealed that one of the seized firearms, a Ruger .357 caliber revolver, was registered to a Westbrook resident.

In an interview with Connecticut State Police, the firearm owner stated that he had just discovered that the revolver had been stolen from his truck. He also stated Ashline had been his employee, Daly said.

Analysis of the cellular telephone seized from Pantojas revealed approximately 72 incoming and outgoing calls between the phone and a number registered to Ashline, Daly said.

In an interview with law enforcement officials, Ashline confessed to stealing the gun and selling it to Pantojas in exchange for approximately 20 baggies of heroin and between $70 and $100 in cash, Daly said.

Ashline has four prior felony convictions, including one for the sale of narcotics and one for first-degree larceny, Daly said.

It is a violation of federal law for a person previously convicted of a felony to possess a firearm or ammunition that has moved in interstate or foreign commerce, Daly said.

Ashline was arrested on June 19, 2014.

On Jan. 13, 2015, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a firearm by a previously convicted felon.

Ashline had been detained from the date of his arrest until June 2015, when he was released into an inpatient drug treatment program.

He was remanded to custody on Oct. 6, 2015, after he tested positive for opiates, was terminated from his drug treatment program and his bond was revoked, Daly said.

Ashline was then transferred into state custody, where he is serving an unrelated 30-month state sentence scheduled to expire in July 2018, Daly said. A Justin Ashline with the same birth year shows up eight times on the state Judicial system's convictions list.

He will serve an additional 13 months of federal imprisonment when he released from state custody, Daly said.