Police: Teen caught with automatic gun
High-capacity clip also recovered at youth’s home
STAMFORD — A city teen already facing a gun possession charge was found with a stolen semiautomatic pistol and an illegal highcapacity magazine, in addition to more than four ounces of marijuana that he had for sale, police said.
Capt. Richard Conklin said officers in the Narcotics and Organized Crime Squad received tips that Elvis Almengot-Castillo, 19, of Severance Drive, was selling marijuana out of his home and was illegally in possession of the handgun.
After police obtained a search warrant, officers stopped Almengot-Castillo in a car and searched him, but turned up only $310 in cash and less than three grams of marijuana, police said. But when they went to his Severance Road home at about 7:30 p.m. police found a plastic shopping bag with 128 grams of marijuana as well as a digital scale. While talking to police he confided to that he had a gun in the basement and showed them where it was, police said.
The gun turned out to be a .9 millimeter Taurus semiautomatic with a huge 32-bullet magazine that had nine bullets in it, Conklin said.
Magazines larger than 10 rounds in size are prohibited for civilian use. When police do find larger magazines they are usually in the 15- to 17round range, Conklin said. It is rare for the police to find such a large magazine on the street, he said.
When police ran the serial
number on the gun, it came up stolen from a car parked around Covington, Georgia in October 2019. Conklin said that Almengot-Castillo admitted to purchasing the weapon on the street.
He was charged with criminal use of a weapon, stealing a firearm, carrying a pistol without a permit, possession of a high capacity magazine, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of more than four ounces of marijuana and held over the weekend on a $200,000 court appearance bond. At his arraignment on the charges Monday, Judge John Blawie
Police say 19-year-old, already facing a weapons charge, had a .9 millimeter semiautomatic pistol with an unusually large magazine.
upped the bond to $250,000.
His Stamford criminal defense attorney Lindy Urso said, “Unfortunately this kid seems to take one step forward and two back. Maybe some time away will finally do the trick.”
Conklin said police are going to send the shell casing that was found at the scene of a Jan. 2 incident in which a man was pistol whipped on Broad Street and a gun discharged to the state’s Forensic Science Laboratory for testing to see if it matches the confiscated weapon.
“We believe that additional charges in that incident will be forthcoming,” Conklin said. “We were very lucky in that January incident that no one got hurt.”
“This was a very good case by NOC officers. Conor Canning was the lead investigator in the case and they did a good job working with the Bureau of Criminal Investigations,” Conklin said.
Almengot-Castillo was arrested last July allegedly in possession of a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol and was released after posting a bond.