Cocaine dealer and tool thief gets 12 years

A U.S. District Court judge in New Haven, Conn., has sentenced Anthony Spence, of Bloomfield, Conn., to 12 years in federal prison for a conspiracy to distribute more than 25 kilograms of cocaine, which he funded through a counterfeit check scheme targeting home improvement retailers in several Eastern states.

Spence pled guilty to two drug and counterfeiting related counts. 

According to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, Spence conspired to import large amounts of cocaine from Texas into Connecticut from 2006 to May 2009, when he was arrested by federal agents. Authorities claim that the 46-year-old drug dealer financed his cocaine trafficking activities by printing counterfeit checks and false identification cards and then using them, with the help of co-conspirators, to buy multiple items at retail stores in Connecticut, Texas and several other eastern states.

“[They] primarily purchased large appliances and tools from Lowe's and Home Depot. The perpetrators then loaded the items onto a truck and delivered them to storage facilities. Typically, the items were then sold to contractors,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported. Federal authorities estimate that the counterfeit check scheme defrauded large retail stores of more than $1.2 million.

As part of his sentence, Spence has been ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $1,240,155 to the victim stores.

Spence has prior convictions, including a 1975 federal bank fraud conviction in the District of Connecticut for which he received a sentence of 46 months of imprisonment and five years of supervised release.