Drug Raid Yields Convicted Felon

An early morning raid at a Springs Fireplace Road house on February 27 must have seemed like déjà vu to local police.

Following an investigation by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s East End Drug Task Force and East Hampton Town Police a team of investigators smashed their way into the house at 157 Springs Fireplace Road at about 6:47 AM.

Police expected to find two brothers at the location and they did. Franaldo Hanna and Frank Hanna live there. The yield, too, was bountiful: police said via a press release that Oxycodone, pot, scales, packaging material, and several weapons, including a .45 caliber handgun, were seized.
Captain Chris Anderson said more than two pounds of marijuana was seized.

The bust was on familiar turf. On May 24, 2012, town police, joined by East Hampton Village Police, found themselves engaged in a high-speed chase, following a Hyundai driven by Kimberley Delrio.

Earlier Frederic Stephens, age 20, allegedly told police he had been shot. Delrio was taking him to the hospital, he said. The vehicle then took off with police in hot pursuit.

Stephens later told police he went to Hanna’s house on Springs Fireplace Road and that Frank approached him in the basement holding a gun. It discharged, although Stephens said he felt it was an accidental shooting.

Six days later police went to the house and made the arrest. They said they found the slug that shattered Stephens’s arm in the basement of the house but not the pistol in question. They did find a cache of other weapons, including several shotguns, 10 cases of shotgun shells, an AK 47-style rifle, two banana clips, and a case of ammunition for the rifle, they said.

Frank Hanna was arrested at the scene, Anderson said, and “eventually took a conviction plea.” He did hard time, according to two sources.

That felony conviction puts Frank Hanna in a precarious predicament. He now faces the charge of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, a C felony, for the loaded .45-caliber handgun. Coupled with his earlier felony conviction that could mean 15 years in the slammer. Both brothers are charged with felony possession of marijuana and numerous lesser charges.

Frank, 35, was remanded to jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. His brother was released after family members posted $3000 bail.

Stephens resurfaced after the shooting incident in August 2016 when he was arrested at the Memory Motel in Montauk, where the rapper Busta Rhymes appeared earlier in the night. Stephens reportedly confronted officers at closing time and threatened them.

The next summer shotgun pellets were found embedded in a house on Oakview Highway after someone blasted it from the street. Police said Stephens was staying at the house but refused to cooperate. Anderson said it was his understanding there was some kind of “turf war” at play.