Police: Felons caught with loaded gun
BRIDGEPORT — Police task forces patrolling the city’s North End as part of an effort to stem gun violence in the city said they arrested five convicted felons in a car Tuesday and recovered a loaded handgun.
Messiah Carrasquillo, 35, of Union Avenue; William Carrasquillo, 28, of Trumbull Avenue; Joel Marcano, 38, of Putnam Street; Nester Rivera, 39, of Yale Street and Iris Aponte, 34, of Lakeside Street, were charged with criminal possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm in a motor vehicle.
On Wednesday, during their arraignments, Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton ordered Messiah Carrasquillo and Rivera held in lieu of $150,000 bonds and the others on $50,000 bonds.
According to police, on Tuesday members of the state police gang task force and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force were patrolling the city’s North End when they received information that several people were headed to a business on Lake Street for a rendezvous and they were armed.
The task forces staked out the building and a short time later police said they spotted a Nissan sedan with what turned out to be fake Texas license plates pull into the parking lot.
Police said officers converged on the car and took the people inside into custody. The officers then searched the car and found a loaded .22-caliber handgun and a gun that fires pepper canisters, police said.
The five men in the car were convicted felons.
In January 2020, Messiah Carrasquillo was convicted of criminal possession of a pistol and reckless endangerment and sentenced to three years in prison, according to court records. William Carrasquillo was sentenced to two years in prison in November 2018 on larceny, escape and violation of probation convictions. The year before, records show, he was sentenced to five years in prison on drug charges.
Rivera was sentenced in February 2020 to a year on gun and assault charges, Aponte was put on probation in 2020 for a drug conviction and Marcano was sentenced to three years in prison in 2016 for reckless endangerment and unlawful restraint, court records show.