Several neighbors had called police to say they suspected drug activity at the home of Robert Cohn on Water Street in Beverly but when the search warrant was executed police say they found a dozen rounds of AK-47 ammunition, a fully-loaded, high capacity banana style-clip...and a fully loaded handgun. Beverly Police Officer John McCarthy says there was also a digital scale and concealment contained made to look like beer cans.
Cohn was arrested when he arrived home in the middle of the search. Police say they recovered about $500 worth of heroin and $2,000 cash on him
This is not Cohn's first brush with the law. If he's convicted, he could face an additional 15 years as a career criminal.
WBZ
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: March 25, 2008 10:24 pm ShareThisPrintThis
Veteran detective testifies in Beverly bomb, ammo case
By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
BEVERLY — A hearing in the case of a Tuck's Point resident charged with keeping four homemade bombs, an unlicensed handgun and an assortment of ammunition in his luxury condo got underway yesterday with testimony from a veteran drug detective.
Robert Cohn, 56, a paralegal and case manager for a Woburn law firm, had been under surveillance after police got a tip that he had been peddling heroin, methadone and OxyContin, Detective Tom Nolan said.
After a series of undercover purchases from Cohn, Nolan said, he applied for a search warrant for Cohn's condo at 117 Water St., Unit 24.
That search, conducted on March 13, turned up a list of items that also included fake identification with Cohn's photo and another person's name and four small bags of heroin in Cohn's pockets. Cohn also had a surveillance camera set up in a window of the condo.
While police were booking Cohn, Nolan testified, he received a cell phone call and a text message from someone looking to buy "one brown and four regs," which police believe are references to heroin (which is brown) and regs, or 10-milligram methadone tablets.
Cohn repeatedly whispered to his lawyer, Cesar Archilla, during the hearing, and when Archilla began his cross-examination of the officer it appeared that Cohn had been giving the lawyer questions to ask.
But the defense hit several dead-ends.
"You've known Mr. Cohn since the 1980s, isn't that true?" Archilla asked Nolan, who has been a police officer for 10 years — and who would have been in high school in the 1980s.
Nolan said he didn't know Cohn until he made a traffic stop about five years ago.
"Do you have a sister who is familiar with Mr. Cohn?" Archilla asked. But when Nolan explained that his sister is even younger than he is, Judge Michael Lauranzano intervened.
"Maybe it's a case of mistaken identity," said the judge. "Let's move on."
Archilla also tried to question Nolan about an ongoing legal battle between Cohn and the condo association at Tuck's Point, which took him to court in 2001 over Cohn's decision to replace the windows in his unit. The condo board has been forced at times to hire police details for condo association meetings. Prosecutor James Steinberg objected to the line of questioning, however.
The defense lawyer also tried to suggest that the tipster had given police the wrong information about where the drug activity was taking place, noting that police have been called to the unit downstairs from Cohn's about a tenant who has a drug problem.
As for reports of visitors to his condo at all hours, Archilla suggested that as a paralegal and case manager for a law firm, Cohn is required to "work all kinds of hours."
The hearing will resume today with testimony from Sgt. Michael Cassola, who was also involved in the investigation.
Posted by: DeputyFife
Published: March 27, 2008 06:35 am ShareThisPrintThis
Beverly man charged in bomb case held without bail By Julie Manganis Staff writer
BEVERLY — A judge yesterday decided that Robert Cohn, a Beverly man charged with keeping four homemade bombs, a gun and a collection of ammunition in his Tuck's Point condo, poses a danger to the public and ordered him held without bail.
Cohn, 56, was arrested earlier this month after police raided his condo and searched his Hummer. Beverly police detectives had been investigating Cohn for a couple of months after getting a series of complaints from neighbors about numerous visitors coming and going from his condo at all hours.
Then, police found someone who was willing to make two controlled purchases of drugs from Cohn, an informant identified in a search warrant affidavit as "Purple."
After the second transaction, police obtained the warrant. During the arrest, police found on Cohn about $2,000 in cash, as well as four small bags of heroin, about $500 worth; he was charged with possession with intent to distribute the drug.
Police, however, did not realize that they would also find four homemade explosive devices, which resembled half-sticks of dynamite, inside the luxury condo. Sgt. Michael Cassola testified yesterday that the devices were filled with highly explosive "flash powder."
The state police bomb squad "told me those things had to have been full of flash powder. If we were to have dropped them or threw them up against a wall, they would have exploded," Cassola said yesterday.
Instead, Cassola carried them to Sandy Point Beach, laid them on the sand and marked the area with two orange cones he found.
Then, he went over to a man sleeping in a sleeping bag on the beach and roused him.
The bomb squad, Cassola said, intended to use wires laid across the devices to split them open, which would have allowed them to examine and test the contents. But the devices instead exploded and were destroyed.
As Cassola testified, Cohn had a range of reactions, at times shaking his head or nodding, or grimacing. Sometimes he would look back at his ex-wife, who sat just feet away in the small hearing room.
Cohn's lawyer, Cesar Archilla, argued that the police may not have adequately supervised the informant during the controlled drug buys, which were the basis for the search warrant. If a judge agrees, the results of that search warrant would be inadmissible in court.
Archilla also said the destruction of the four devices also raises questions about the prosecution's ability to pursue those charges.
Salem District Court Judge Michael Lauranzano did suggest that police may have overcharged Cohn when they filed a complaint that he was illegally carrying a firearm.
"Where's the carrying?" asked Lauranzano, noting that the loaded .22-caliber handgun was found inside the condo — in an armoire in the bedroom.
Cohn was convicted in Suffolk County of illegally carrying a firearm and drug trafficking in 1989 and served part of an eight- to 10-year prison term before being paroled in the early 1990s (prior to the truth-in-sentencing law).
His criminal record stretches back 40 years and includes convictions for drunken driving and, in 2004, a continuation without a finding in a case involving OxyContin and cocaine.
Yesterday, a probation officer also asked Lauranzano to revoke Cohn's probation in that case. The judge ordered Cohn detained pending a final hearing on April 16.
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