Seven arrested after Taunton police seize guns, drugs in two vice operations - Taunton Daily Gazette

Two loaded handguns — one of which was in a Broadway apartment where a woman and her young son were present — and a small quantity of drugs were confiscated Friday afternoon, after Taunton police said they conducted two successful vice operations resulting in the arrest of seven men.

The first arrest, at 10:30 a.m., involved several cruisers dispatched to Weir Street for a felony stop of an SUV carrying 39-year-old Nathaniel Moore.

Police say they'd received credible, confidential information that Moore was a passenger in the 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee and that he also had a gun. Cops also say Moore had an arrest warrant out of Brockton for a motor vehicle offense.

Moore, who is listed as homeless, allegedly began moving around in a suspicious manner before he exited the vehicle. Police said when they checked the vehicle's center console they found a .22-caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic fully loaded with 10 bullets, including one in the chamber.

Moore was arrested and charged with illegal possession of both a firearm and ammunition.

Moore is no stranger to local law enforcement. He was shot in the chest in 2004 on the grounds of the former DeWert Avenue Fairfax Gardens housing project, and less than a month later was chased out of Fairfax and hit with seven bullets, none of which hit a vital organ.

Police at the time said the first shooting incident might have been retaliation for an earlier, non-fatal shooting of two men, one of whom was the late Troy Pina.

Pina was shot to death in 2009 while a passenger in a car driving on Route 24 in Freetown. Police subsequently speculated that the first shooting could have been tied to a drug-dealing feud between Moore and Pina.

Moore in 2004 made described himself to The Taunton Daily Gazette as "one of the top dogs at DeWert." He later was quoted as saying: "Yes I do, I hustle ... cocaine, heroin, pills or weed. And the police know, but that's their job to try and catch me."

A few hours after apprehending Moore, Taunton police, with the assistance of detectives from Dartmouth and New Bedford, managed to arrest the main target of a search warrant they had secured for an apartment house at 122 Broadway.

Agustin J. Roldan, 21, who police say has been living in the third-floor apartment with a woman and her child, was chased down and tackled by detectives in a Washington Street backyard.

Police said as they prepared to execute the search warrant, they saw Roldan — who was arrested in February for trafficking heroin — walk with another man across Broadway to Cumberland Farms, where they had gone to buy cigars.

Roldan, they said, took off running as soon as TPD detective Robert Kramer approached him. Police also note Roldan ran straight into an unmarked New Bedford police car that was parked at a gas pump.

Police said they subsequently retrieved five grams of heroin Roldan stashed in an adjacent East Broadway Street backyard. They also confiscated a canister of pepper spray.

Police charged Roldan with possession to distribute both heroin and oxycodone, illegal possession of a chemical spray, committing a drug violation near a school and conspiracy to violate drug laws.

When detectives executed their search warrant and came through the unlocked door of the third-floor apartment, they allegedly found 21-year-old Nicholas Yeskis, of Cocasset Street in Foxboro, sitting on a couch playing a video game; cops said a woman and her young son were also inside.

Police said one of the pockets of a Red Sox jacket on which Yeskis was sitting contained a Sterling .25-caliber handgun with three rounds of ammunition in the magazine.

Another jacket identified by the woman as belonging to Yeskis contained $1,300 in cash and four oxycodone pills, police said.

Yeskis was arrested for illegal possession of both a firearm and ammunition, carrying a loaded gun without a license to carry, conspiracy to violate controlled substance laws and resisting arrest.

Neither the woman — nor two other women and a man, who stopped by to visit while police were executing the search warrant — were arrested.

Police said they decided to turn the tables and pose as crack and heroin dealers, after Yeski's cell phone began ringing off the hook from callers seeking to score drugs.

With Kramer posing as a street dealer, they arranged to meet four men who called looking to make a deal with Yeskis. The subsequent arrests took place on the grounds of the Mill River Professional Center plaza at 1 Washington St.

All four men were charged with attempting to commit a crime, to whit possession of heroin.

They were identified as Jonathan Parker, 22, 77 South Main St., Mansfield; Michael Richard Piccirili, 23, 54 Heden St., Norwood; Brian Keith Soderquist, 21, 106 Oak St., Norton; and George Arrison Jung, 21, 61 Juhn Scott Boulevard, Norton.

 

Email Charles Winokoor at  cwinokoor@tauntongazette.com.