Bristol Police File New Charges Against Man, 22, Found With Weapons, Drugs

Bristol police have filed four new felony charges against the man whose cache of weapons, drugs, drug-making gear and paraphernalia were seized from the 78 Washington St. house near Guiteras School that burned on Nov. 25.

Jaret J. Moskal, 22, of Hobe Sound, Fla., enrolled as a student at Roger Williams University, was charged last Friday, Dec. 6, with possession with intent to deliver marijuana, distributing or manufacturing narcotics near schools, carrying a dangerous weapon while involved in a crime, and possession of a firearm while committing a controlled substance violation.

Moskal was charged previously on Nov. 25 on four drug possession charges, including three felonies. He continues to be the subject of an ongoing narcotics investigation by the Bristol police department.

Moskal’s initial arrest came after Bristol firefighters responded to a fire at the home he was renting with a woman roommate at 78 Washington St. across the street from Guiteras School. Police officers seized the weapons, ammunition, drugs, drug paraphernalia and drug-making gear, including marijuana, a variety of other pills, including amphetamines and methamphetamines, several rifles, a shotgun, two semi-automatic weapons -- an AK-47 and an AR-15 -- and a pellet gun.

Moskal was being held at the Adult Correctional Institution. He posted $5,000 bail and was released with a Feb. 27 date to appear back in District Court.

Moskal’s initial arrest and the seizure of the weapons came up at the end of last week’s Bristol Town Council meeting. Shael Norris, a parent of three children at Guiteras School, said she was quite upset that no one at the school or in the school department knew about the situation at a house across the street from the school.

“I am not sending my children to school tomorrow until I know they are safe,” she said.

Finding what she termed “an arsenal” of weapons across the street from the school was very disturbing, said Norris, who wanted to know why that information was not shared with school officials.

“I read about it in the Patch,” she said. “No one at the school seemed to know anything.”

Deputy Police Chief Steven Contente, sitting in for the police chief at the meeting, said that there did not appear to an imminent threat so the police did not release the information. If the police believed that the children were threatened, they would have acted on that threat.

The information that was released to the news media was required to be released under the Access to Public Records Act, he said.

“I assure you, we took it very seriously,” Contente said. “We did not find a specific threat.”

Contente told Norris after the meeting that the weapons were not returned to Moskal, who legally owned them, because of the felony charges.