Two retired state troopers face charges for allegedly illegal arrangements with gun dealers

Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff/Globe Staff

Two retired Massachusetts State Police troopers are facing criminal charges for allegedly getting free guns from a state-contracted firearms dealer and for accepting personalized assault rifles from a gunmaker seeking business with the state.

Paul M. Wosny, a former lieutenant, and Michael G. Wilmot, a former trooper, are scheduled to be arraigned in East Brookfield District Court later this year. The men each face a single count of violating public employee standards of conduct, a felony, records show.

The Globe has reported that Wosny, Wilmot, and a third now-retired trooper, Robert Outwater, were suspended in September 2016 and that Attorney General Maura Healey’s office was notified of their alleged misuse of State Police weaponry at that time.

Outwater signed a cooperation agreement with Healey’s office, the Globe has reported, but the investigation against the two other troopers continued until prosecutors obtained the criminal complaints against the two men Wednesday.

David Procopio, a State Police spokesman, said the charges against Wosny and Wilmot resulted from an investigation launched by State Police in 2016.

“The conduct as alleged in the complaints contradicts the standards of conduct demanded by the department, and since the internal investigation, stricter inventory controls and systems have been implemented in the MSP armory,” Procopio said in a statement.

All three troopers worked at the department’s armory in New Braintree, where they were responsible for purchasing weapons and ammunition for the 2,000-trooper department, Healey’s office said Thursday. Wosny was the unit commander.

According to Healey’s office, in August 2013 the owner of Troy Industries, a West Springfield gunmaker, gave Wilmot two Trooper Carbine rifles, one for him and one for Wosny. The rifles were personalized with serial numbers that matched the troopers’ State Police identification numbers, prosecutors said.

“During this time, Troy Industries was seeking to become an MSP vendor,’’ prosecutors said.

In 2015, Wosny allegedly collected 200 rifles, shotguns, and handguns from the State Police armory and provided them to a Greenfield gun dealer, Jurek Brothers, in return for store credit for future State Police purchases. Jurek was a State Police provider at the time, prosecutors said. The firearms were “obsolete, unserviceable or non-issuable” to troopers.

However, “prior to sending the weapons to Jurek for the trade, Wosny tagged two weapons and Wilmot tagged nine weapons, indicating that they were interested in them, and later were given those weapons by Jurek at no cost,’’ prosecutors said.

“Wosny and Wilmot later submitted false and misleading reports in which they failed to disclose that they had gotten weapons back from Jurek at no charge.”

Wosny was transferred from the armory in September 2015. One month later, Wilmot allegedly removed from the armory four parts of a Colt firearm known as an “upper receiver” that can be made into a functioning firearm by adding parts. Wilmot also allegedly took 100 high-capacity plastic magazines and 23 upper receivers made by Troy.

He shared some of the firearms equipment with Wosny, prosecutors allege.

Wosny’s attorney, Timothy M. Burke of Needham, said his client had an “unblemished history with the State Police. He has never been disciplined before. He did not ask for or in any way solicit the Troy rifle.”

Burke, who said Wosny will fight the case in court, said Wosny kept the rifle.

Lowell attorney Stanley Norkunas, who is representing Wilmot, said his client had never been “the subject of a disciplinary matter before this” and that he had “one of the most distinguished records of any trooper.”

“He is the type of trooper who you would want to show up when you call 911,” he said.

Wilmot, 59, of Sturbridge, is to be arraigned on Nov. 1. Wosny, 50, of Norfolk, is due in court Dec. 1.