Lynn felon indicted on weapons charges

SALEM – A Lynn felon police say they caught armed with a loaded Glock handgun on Broad Street last fall has been indicted by an Essex County grand jury.Modesto Cruz, 34, of 109 Broad St., #105, faces charges of carrying a firearm without a license, felon in possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition.The charges arise out of his arrest on Oct. 18 when police found him smoking marijuana in a hallway apartment on Broad Street. When police approached him he started to run away, but was quickly subdued.As he was being “pat frisked” police found a black .40-caliber Glock handgun in a holster attacked to his belt.Cruz reportedly told police that he had bought the gun for $400 and was going to resell it to someone else for $600 and was waiting in the back hallway for the buyer to appear.Because Cruz has prior drug conviction out of Essex Superior Court, he faces a mandatory 15-year prison term for illegal possession of a firearm.Assistant District Attorney John B. Brennan is assigned to prosecute the case for the state.The indictments handed up Friday afternoon by the grand jury now move the case from Lynn District Court, where Cruz has pleaded not guilty, into Salem Superior Court where he will be re-arraigned within a few weeks.Indictments are not an indication of guilt: rather it is a legal process that allows a case to be transferred from the lower court to Superior Court allowing for a more severe punishment.