Police: Easton Man Robbed Local Wal-Mart
Police say Gregory Paul Dalrymple held up Lower Nazareth Wal-Mart to steal fentanyl earlier this month.
An Easton man who wasn’t home when police came looking for him earlier this month is now is custody and charged with the gunpoint robbery of a Wal-Mart pharmacy in which he allegedly got away with the painkiller Fentanyl and another drug.
Gregory Paul Dalrymple, 29, of 18 N. 11th St., turned himself into Colonial Regional Police Wednesday.
A criminal complaint reveals that the day before the Aug. 6 robbery at the Wal-Mart in Lower Nazareth Township, Dalrymple’s wife was at the same pharmacy attempting to fill a prescription in his name for Fentanyl.
A pharmacist denied the attempt because a check of Wal-Mart’s computer system showed that Dalrymple had been filling multiple Fentanyl prescriptions “at many different” Wal-Mart pharmacies, the complaint says.
The complaint also says the suspect’s wife, Lindsey Dalrymple, arrived at the Northampton Crossings shopping center – which Wal-Mart co-anchors -- in a gold sedan, the same kind of car in which Dalrymple allegedly escaped after the robbery. The complaint says nothing about charges against the wife.
Dalrymple was arraigned Wednesday by District Judge Jackie Taschner of Palmer Township and committed to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $150,000 bail.
The complaint, filed by Det. Michael J. Munch of Colonial Regional police, does not say how police found Dalrymple or where he was apprehended. But it provides the following details:
--Dalrymple allegedly walked behind the Wal-Mart counter around 8:25pm Aug. 6, a Monday, brandishing a black handgun – a Glock .357 registered to his wife. He was wearing a white T-shirt, blue sweat jacket, Yankees cap, blue jeans and a red bandanna over his mouth and throat.
--He pointed the handgun at the pharmacist and demanded the pharmacist “quickly” put Fentanyl in a bag. The pharmacist “quickly” put two boxes of Fentanyl patches and 11 bottles containing 1,009 tablets of the painkiller Oxycodone in the bag. Elsewhere in the complaint, it states the pharmacist placed three boxes of Fentanyl patches in the bag.
--Dalrymple ran out of the store and got into the passenger side of a gold sedan waiting in the parking lot. The complaint does not identify the driver. But it says Lindsey Dalrymple arrived at the Wal-Mart Aug. 5 in a gold sedan. And it says Gregory Dalrymple’s grandmother, Nancy Bisher of Easton, is the owner of a gold 2006 Chevy Cobalt sedan.
--On Aug. 8, two days after the robbery and a day after police got a tip that Dalrymple was the alleged robber, the Wal-Mart pharmacist picked out Dalrymple from a photo lineup and said he was the robber.
On Aug. 9, Colonial Regional police – with assistance from Easton police – raided Dalrymple’s home, but he wasn’t there.
Dalrymple was charged with robbery, simple assault, possessing instruments of crime, retail theft and receiving stolen property.
According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse website, Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate analgesic similar to but more potent than morphine. It is typically used to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery.
Street names include Apache, China girl, China White, dance fever, friend, goodfella, jackpot, murder 8, TNT, tango and cash.
Ronnie DelBacco
9:06 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
Among the charges listed against this man and others accussed in serious crimes is one that reads, “possessing instruments of crime”. I often wondered exactly what they mean by an “instrument of crime”. So, I looked it up and found the following.
Among the different definitions listed under (d) Definitions in the 2010 Pennsylvania Code, Title 18 - CRIMES AND OFFENSES, Chapter 9 - Inchoate Crimes, 907 - Possessing instruments of crime, they define “Instrument of Crime” as. Any of the following:(1) Anything specially made or specially adapted for criminal use.(2) Anything used for criminal purposes and possessed by the actor under circumstances not manifestly appropriate for lawful uses it may have.
At first glance this seems harmless enough, however let’s look at it with more scrutiny and make the objects in question a lawfully manufactured handgun or screwdriver.
#1 is ok because it does not demonize lawfully manufactured products not intended for criminal use. But the way #2 is worded, it assumes that a handgun or screwdriver is primarily manufactured for the purpose of committing crime with a secondary purpose “for lawful uses it may have”. I contend that this was deliberately written this way to make it easier for law enforcement and prosecuting attorneys to gain convictions in criminal suits. Collaterally however, this definition turns all legally manufactured products including handguns and screwdrivers into instruments of crime first.
Ronnie DelBacco
9:07 am on Thursday, August 23, 2012
(Part 2)
In the same ordinance under (a) Criminal instruments generally,--“A person commits a misdemeanor of the first degree if he possesses any instrument of crime with intent to employ it criminally”, all legally manufactured products are viewed as “criminal instruments” rather than just instruments misused to commit a crime.
My point is that the charge of “possessing instruments of crime” seems to be one of those superfluous charges employed in a long list of charges designed to be nothing more than a bargaining tool when it comes time to wheel and deal with the defense. It may strengthen the case for the prosecution but it demonizes lawfully possessed and legally manufactured products like handguns and screwdrivers for those of us who never intend to misuse them as “instruments of crime”.