Police: Flurry of Stolen Weapons Arrests in Iowa City Over Past Week "A Coincidence"

Altogether, eight different men have been arrested and charged with stolen weapons related offenses by the Iowa City Police in a little over a week.

Iowa City Police Sgt. Denise Brotherton said that the arrests arose from two completely different incidents, and that the timing was coincidental enough to make the numbers seem larger than they usually are.

"We have things happen that way from time-to-time," Brotherton said. "It's just a coincidence when it happens that way."

In the first incident, a transient, Eric Cole, 20, allegedly admitted to selling a stolen handgun valued at $2,500 to another man at a party on Feb. 4, according to police. For that he was charged with weapon trafficking charges, possessing a stolen weapon, along with possessing handgun as a felon. The handgun was identified as a Para Ordnance LDA .40 caliber with custom work. The complaint indicated that Cole sold the gun for $150.

The incident numbers on the Cole complaints matched up with another batch of arrests two days later, which Brotherton said indicates that investigators feel they are connected. Police arrested Tregg Boone and Ryan Barthelemy, 24 and 25, of 400 Bjaysville Lane, and charged them with second-degree theft for buying a weapon from a convicted felon.

Another roommate at the same BJaysville address, Brandon Miller, 28, was charged with felony marijuana possession with intent to distribute after he was pulled over on Feb. 10 for driving with tinted windshields on his vehicle. According to the criminal complaint, police were informed Miller or his passenger might be in possession of a stolen handgun, which turned out to not be the case.

In the other incident, five Burlington men were charged with a variety of offenses on Saturday after they were stopped driving in the area of an earlier drive-by shooting at Caliente Night Club. Police say when they were stopped and their vehicle was searched three handguns were found. Investigation into that arrest revealed that at least one of those weapons had been stolen in Washington County.

Brotherton said that stolen guns are common in gun crimes because people, potentially with felonies on their record, don't have to worry about background checks. She said the five Burlington men had apparently been in town for a show on Friday, so it was just a matter of timing that the incident occurred.

"They weren't even from around here," she said.