Here’s a pro tip for all you felons out there aspiring to buy guns illegally – stay out of police stations. You’d think that would be something that wouldn’t need to be emphasized much, but it appears that Roldy Francois was busy updating his Facebook page when that lesson was covered in crook school. It’s a shame, too, because his lack of attentiveness has cost him more than thirteen years in the hoosegow…
Roldy wanted to buy himself some guns. His only problem was that he was already a thrice-convicted felon and that makes filling out those 4473s problematic. So he dreamed up a way to get around that hurdle by stealing the identity of someone from Puerto Rico and buying the guns while presenting himself as Efrain Baez.
He got away with it, too. Until two of his guns illegally purchased guns were stolen, that is. Now, if you’d stolen someone’s identity and used it to purchase heaters, you’d probably let it slide and stay on the down low. No use pressing the matter and calling undue attention to yourself, right? Well, not if you’re Roldy Francois. Those must have been some nice guns because he really wanted them back.
Francois walked into the Providence police station in February 2010 with a lawyer and a female acquaintance to report the theft of two 9mm firearms from his car. Francois told the police he was Efrain Baez, but a Providence detective recognized Francois from a previous unrelated investigation.
I’m not sure what the lawyer was for, unless he just wanted to save the quarter his one phone call would have cost him had he been arrested then and there. Francois, wanting to make sure the cops had all the info they needed to track down the boosted weapons, gave them everything they needed to trace the guns back to the dealer who sold them to him.
The dealer identified Francois as the person who purchased them, and provided information that Francois used a photo ID — a Florida driver’s license containing the name and personal information of Efrain Colon Baez — to purchase five firearms between October 2009 and February 2010, including the reported stolen 9mm pistols.
Poor Roldy. We can forgive him as he knew not now dumb he was. Unfortunately, the Providence police department was somewhat less forgiving. He was convicted on Friday of illegal gun possession and identity theft charges. Oh, and he falsified his 4473s, too.
If you need him, he’ll be spending the next 164 months living at taxpayer expense. He’ll then have three years of supervised probation to negotiate. Maybe he’ll use his time productively and take a correspondence course or two. Hopefully he’ll learn a marketable trade he can take advantage of when he’s sprung. At minimum, though, all that time mingling with the prison population should help him bone up and become a better crook.