News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 3, 2004

Convicted Heroin Trafficker Sentenced

AUG 3 - Boston, MA... A Wilmington resident who pleaded guilty to two heroin trafficking charges and was convicted of a third, was sentenced today in federal court to time served.

Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent in Charge of the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration in New England; United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Wilmington Police Chief Bernard Nally announced that BRYAN MORAN, age 20, of 6 Kirk Street, Wilmington, Massachusetts, was sentenced by Senior U. S. District Judge Robert E. Keeton to time already served, 21 months in prison.

The U. S. Attorney intends to seek the permission of the Solicitor General to file a Notice of Appeal with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in this matter. MORAN was named in a federal indictment returned in April, 2002 charging him and two co- defendants with various heroin trafficking offenses. The indictment was the product of a investigation into the February, 2002 death of nineteen- year- old man from Lowell, Massachusetts.

At a plea hearing that took place on April 29, 2003, before Judge Keeton, MORAN pleaded guilty to two heroin trafficking counts and requested a trial on a third. MORAN thereafter proceeded to trial on the third heroin charge asserted against him. After a four- day trial, on February 4, 2004, the jury convicted MORAN of distributing heroin and aiding and abetting the distribution of heroin.

Evidence presented during the trial proved that on February 8, 2002, the Wilmington Police Department responded to a 9- 1- 1 call that there was a deceased male, later identified as Matthew Lessard, who was believed to have been dead for 48 hours or more. A hypodermic needle was found on Lessard’s abdomen and several small plastic bags marked with the logo “top dog” were found near him. Each of these bags contained heroin residue. There was evidence that the “top dog” bags are linked to the February 4, 2002, distribution of heroin that MORAN is now convicted of aiding and abetting.

The case was investigated by the Wilmington Police Department and the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It was prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney John A. Wortmann, Jr. in Sullivan’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Unit.