Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Connecticut
Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014
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Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that KARL ROYE, also known as “Eagle," 23, of Hartford, was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello in Hartford to 90 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.
According to court documents and statements made in court, the Hartford Police Department received information that ROYE was selling crack cocaine out of his Holcomb Street residence in Hartford and that he possessed handguns that he used to protect his drug operation. Investigators then made a controlled purchase of crack at ROYE’s residence.
On September 5, 2013, the Hartford Police Department’s Shooting Task Force and the FBI’s Northern Connecticut Violent Crimes Task Force executed a state search warrant at ROYE’s residence. As the search team approached the residence, ROYE drove from his house at a high rate of speed. Officers stopped ROYE at the end of the street and seized from him two cell phones and $640 in cash. A search of ROYE’s residence yielded approximately $2,000 in cash and a money counting machine, which were found in ROYE’s bedroom. Searchers also found two backpacks that were hidden above a tiled ceiling in the basement. The backpacks revealed quantities of crack cocaine and marijuana packaged for distribution, two digital scales, drug packaging materials, and a.38 caliber Smith & Wesson, Model 60, revolver.
A firearms trace on the weapon established that it had been reported to the Hartford Police Department in November 2012 as having been stolen from the residence of its owner.
ROYE has been detained since his arrest on September 5, 2013. On June 11, 2014, he pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute cocaine base (“crack"), and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
ROYE’s criminal history includes an arrest by Hartford Police on October 8, 2009, after he was found in possession of four loaded handguns, a silencer and quantities of crack and marijuana.
This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Northern Connecticut Violent Crimes Task Force and the Hartford Police Department. The FBI task force includes members of the Hartford Police Department, East Hartford Police Department, Connecticut State Police and Connecticut Department of Correction. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
