United States Attorney's Office District of Connecticut
Press Release

ARNOLD BELL SENTENCED TO 47 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON

Kevin J. O'Connor, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ARNOLD BELL, age 38, formerly of New Haven, Connecticut, was today sentenced by Senior United States District Judge Alan H. Nevas in Bridgeport to 47 years of imprisonment, followed by two years of supervised release.

BELL was convicted by a jury on February 26, 2004, for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Judge Nevas sentenced BELL to 540 months of imprisonment on the firearm charge and an additional 24 months of imprisonment, to be served consecutively, for violating the conditions of his federal supervised release that he was on at the time of the offense. Judge Nevas ordered that this federal sentence run concurrently with the 45-year state sentence imposed by Connecticut Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin on June 4, 2004, on his convictions by a state jury on assault and related charges.

The evidence presented by the Government at BELL's trial proved that BELL possessed the gun as a convicted felon from February 2002, shortly after he was released from federal prison on gun charges, to June 13, 2002, when he used the firearm to shoot New Haven Police Officer Robert Fumiatti when Fumiatti attempted to question BELL in the Hill Section of New Haven. BELL was arrested by members of the New Haven Police Department the early morning hours of June 14, 2002.

"Arnold Bell is precisely the type of individual who should be prosecuted under the Armed Career Criminal Act that targets repeat offenders who possess firearms," U.S. Attorney O'Connor stated. "Individuals who possess firearms, especially those who use those firearms to commit acts of violence, should expect to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

The Armed Career Criminal Act provides for a mandatory minimum 15-year term of incarceration and up to life imprisonment for defendants who possess a firearm that has traveled in interstate commerce, and who have been convicted of committing three or more violent felony or serious drug offenses.

This case was investigated by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and by officers of the New Haven Police Department and the Hamden Police Department. It was prosecuted by Deputy United States Attorney John H. Durham and Assistant United States Attorney Anthony E. Kaplan.

CONTACT:

U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
Tom Carson
(203) 821-3722
thomas.carson@usdoj.gov