Violent East Hartford drug group leader gets 11 years

Apr. 8—When an FBI gang task force received authorization to tap the phone of Jimmy Flores of East Hartford, who was sentenced Wednesday to more than 11 years in federal prison for drug and gun crimes, the task force members most familiar with him didn't think the probe would last long.

The reason, prosecutor Brian P. Leaming explained in a sentencing memorandum, was that they knew Flores' violent tendencies and believed authorities would be forced to step in to prevent potential violence they would learn about through the wiretap.

"Those predictions proved to be prophetic," the prosecutor wrote.

Within 30 days, he continued, Flores was involved in five potentially violent situations.

They included threatening to kill his girlfriend and a man he thought was sleeping with her and chasing an undercover Hartford police detective he mistook for someone he had been in a dispute with, possibly while carrying a knife. Flores' potential violence also included arming himself to retaliate against two men he believed had shot up a Hartford apartment building where an associate of his sold drugs and gathering a crew to protect the same building when he believed it was about to be robbed, the prosecutor wrote.

The FBI got the authorization to tap Flores' phone in May 2018, and he was arrested on June 19 of that year. That day, investigators seized drugs and a handgun that Flores had stored at a family member's East Hartford home and a second handgun that was stored at a burned-out barbershop he owned in Hartford, authorities say.

DRUG, GUN SENTENCE

DEFENDANT: Jimmy Flores, 37, known as "Cuz-o," formerly of Footpath Lane in East Hartford

GUILTY PLEAS: Possessing a gun after being convicted of a felony, conspiring to distribute more than 40 grams of fentanyl and more than 28 grams of crack cocaine

SENTENCE: 11 years and four months in prison, followed by four years' supervised release

He has been held without bond since his arrest.

Flores, now 37, who is known as "Cuz-o" and lived in a pleasant-looking suburban home on Footpath Lane in East Hartford, pleaded guilty a little more than a year ago to two federal crimes. They were possessing a gun after being convicted of a felony and conspiring to distribute more than 40 grams of fentanyl and more than 28 grams of crack cocaine.

Judge Vanessa L. Bryant, who sits in U.S. District Court in Hartford, on Wednesday sentenced him to 136 months, or 11 years and four months, in federal prison.

Although the crimes Flores pleaded guilty to don't involve violent acts, his violent tendencies were central to the prosecutor's sentencing argument.

"For most of his life Jimmy Flores' default response to stress or conflict is violence and confrontation," Leaming wrote. "Maybe that behavior was borne from a childhood of physical abuse and neglect or perhaps it is a manifestation of sociopathic tendencies. Whatever the reason, Flores' life is replete with a pattern of violence and defiance rarely seen."

Until Flores fundamentally changes his behavior and perspective on life, the prosecutor continued, "there will remain a strong need to protect the public."

Defense lawyer Audrey A. Felsen acknowledged in her sentencing memo that Flores "is no stranger to violence."

But she went on to explain that he was exposed to violence and experienced physical abuse "from a very young age that continued throughout his childhood.

"The physical abuse stopped only after Mr. Flores asserted himself," she continued. "He learned to protect himself from aggression by striking first."

The investigation that led to Flores' arrest targeted interconnected drug trafficking groups associated with the Latin Kings street gang, according to the prosecutor. The "principal leaders" of these groups, according to the prosecutor, were Flores and Nelson Ferry, now 31, of East Hartford, whom Bryant sentenced last year to 7 1/4 years in prison.

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