
NEW HAVEN — A 34-year-old man the government accused of using planes to fly marijuana from California to Connecticut was sentenced to eight years in federal prison earlier this month.
Robert Capelli, of Milford, will be on four years of supervised release once he gets out of prison. He was also fined $30,000.
According to federal prosecutors, Capelli was in charge of “Stack Paper,” a small group of marijuana traffickers that included Scott Bodnar, of Ansonia, and Terrell Givens, of Beacon Falls.
Bodnar and Givens were sentenced to 55 months in prison for their role in the organization.
“Stack Paper” used a Piper single-engine plane owned by Donald Burns of Milford to purchase bulk quantities of marijuana from an undisclosed supplier in northern California.
The airplane made some 22 trips — until the Federal Aviation Administration took notice of the unusual pattern it was flying in 2016 and alerted the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
On June 29, 2017, DEA agents were waiting for the plane when it landed at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford. Burns, the pilot, consented to a search, prosecutors said, which revealed the aircraft was carrying 400 pounds of marijuana in 16 duffel bags.
The agents then arranged for the marijuana to make it to its destination — off Route 34 in east Derby, where Capelli and Givens were arrested.
Law enforcement discovered a “wealth of information” about the criminal enterprise from cell phones and a thumb drive that were seized from the men after the arrest.
The thumb drive, which belonged to Capelli, prosecutors said, included information on everything from what brand of marijuana the men were buying in California to how much the men were
spending on hotels and travel.
In a sentencing memo, prosecutors alleged that the thumb drive fingered Capelli as the group’s leader, though Capelli’s counsel argued decisions on how to conduct business were made as a group.
Prosecutors further argued that Capelli made more money than his partners, which they said bolstered their contention he was the group’s leader, or “kingpin,” according to the sentencing memo.
Capelli’s lawyer pointed out that Capelli, who took the government’s case against him to trial, maintained steady employment at a car dealership in Bristol, where he was named salesman of the month, all while the court case snaked its way through the system.
He was also married after his arrest.
Federal prosecutors also pointed out that the group’s activities were anything but benign.
A “Stack Paper” associate was shot to death in New Haven in 2016. Prosecutors allege the victim was shot and robbed when he showed up to buy marijuana.
The homicide remains unsolved.
“In most cases, the murder of a person who can only be presumed to be a soldier in a burgeoning marijuana distribution network would have been enough to persuade a rookie criminal entrepreneur to cease, or at least temer, his criminal activities,” a prosecutor wrote in a sentencing memo.
“But, in marked contrast to the person Mr. Capelli deftly portrays himself to be in anticipation of sentencing, Mr. Bennett’s murder was a mere nuisance to Mr. Capelli’s efforts to expand his marijuana-trafficking enterprise.”
The pilot who flew the plane is awaiting sentencing.
Capelli was sentenced Dec. 3 in New Haven.