Tsarnaev Friend Changes Plea to Guilty in Heroin, Gun Charges
After intially pleading not guilty to drug and gun charges at an August hearing, a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev changed his plea at U.S. District Court in Boston Friday.
In July, Stephen Silva, 21, of Cambridge, was charged with heroin trafficking and possessing a gun with a defaced serial number. Authorities believe that the gun, a Ruger P95 9mm pistol, which Silva possessed in February 2013, was the same weapon the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly used to kill MIT police officer Sean Collier two months later.
The gun was recovered in Watertown after a shootout between the bombing suspects and police, during which Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed. How it may have gotten into the Tsarnaev brothers’ possession has not been made public.
Silva, who pleaded guilty to all eight charges against him (seven of them involving heroin distribution), will be sentenced March 17.
He does not face any charges related to the Marathon bombings.
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The Boston Globe reports that Silva reached a plea agreement with prosecutors, which has been kept under seal. This fact combined with the timing of the plea change suggests that Silva may testify against Tsarnaev during his upcoming trial.
Lawyers for another Tsarnaev friend, Khairullozhon Matanov, who is charged with lying to investigators, were also in court Friday, Reuters reports.
Responding to Matanov’s lawyers’ claim that information in a Boston Magazine article came from non-public FBI reports, Judge William Young ordered both prosecutors and Matanov’s lawyers to review who had copies of those reports and how the reporter obtained them.
Jury selection for Tsarnaev’s trial is scheduled to start January 5.
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