Police detail evidence against lawyer in gunshot case

Nov. 5—GLASTONBURY — A local police officer argues that lawyer Wesley S. Spears can be held responsible for a shot the officer believes was fired in Spears' apartment because Spears lives alone and the spent bullet found in a neighbor's apartment was identified through laboratory analysis as having come from his pistol.

That information comes from an arrest warrant affidavit by Officer John Barrett made public this week in Manchester Superior Court.

Glastonbury police arrested Spears on Monday. They charged him with unlawful discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor punishable by up to three months in prison and a $500 fine, and evidence tampering, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

GUNSHOT EVIDENCE

UNLAWFUL DISCHARGE: Evidence against lawyer Wesley Spears is that he lives alone and that a spent bullet found in a neighboring apartment was identified as having been fired from his pistol.

EVIDENCE TAMPERING: Police found evidence of repair work to a wall of Spears' apartment that faces the apartment where the bullet was found — and a picture hung over the repaired areas.

SPEARS' POSITION: He wasn't handling the gun when it went off, and he didn't fix the wall or cause it to be fixed.

As to the tampering charge, Barrett cited evidence that the wall of Spears' apartment facing the apartment where the bullet was found had been repaired in two places — and a picture hung over the repaired areas.

Spears, 68, who lives in 2 Glastonbury Place off House Street and Hebron Avenue, is free on a $10,000 bond.

In an email Friday, he denied that he was handling the gun when the shot went off.

"They don't even know when this incident happened," he wrote in the same email exchange. "There are no witnesses. As far as I am concerned it could have been anyone."

He denied having fixed the drywall in his apartment or having caused that to be done.

"As usual, they bring a weak case against me which they will drop," he wrote. "I will be filing every defense Motion known to attorneys."

Spears has been arrested several times, including a 1996 case in which he was charged with attempted extortion and promoting prostitution in his ill-fated effort to become the agent for basketball star Marcus Camby, a Hartford native.

Those charges were dismissed in 1999 through the accelerated rehabilitation program after Spears spent two years on probation, did community service work, and made required charitable donations.

Barrett reported in his affidavit that Spears "has no criminal history."

Police learned of the gunshot incident from a manager of the apartment complex after the residents of the apartment next to Spears' returned from vacation and found a bullet hole and spent bullet in a closet.

The neighbors told police that they had left for vacation July 11 and returned July 27.

A resident of another nearby apartment reported that on "approximately" July 16, she heard a single loud bang, which she thought at first was fireworks. She reported waiting for a second bang that never came.

After going to Spears' door and finding him "evasive and confrontational," police got a warrant to search his apartment.

They seized a 9mm handgun, a magazine, and ammunition.

Spears' handgun was fired at the state Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden. Analysis there identified the recovered bullet as having been fired from Spears' gun, Barrett reported.

In addition, the gun was swabbed for DNA, which analysts at the state lab found to be a mixture. The officer said a known sample from "the suspect," Spears, was being requested, but he didn't report that it had been obtained and analyzed.

Spears stressed in an email that the DNA had been found to be a mixture, "indicating someone else handle that gun beside me!!!!!!!!!!"

For updates on Glastonbury, and recent crime and courts coverage in North-Central Connecticut, follow Alex Wood on Twitter: @AlexWoodJI1, Facebook: Alex Wood, and Instagram: @AlexWoodJI.