Brattleboro, Vt.
In a March motion, the Windham County State’s Attorney’s Office sought a court order requiring Leonard Moffatt, 40, of Sharon, to provide cheek swab samples for further DNA testing, analysis and comparison. That analysis will be of “material aid in determining whether (the) defendant committed the offense,” wrote Deputy State’s Attorney David Gartenstein.
Moffatt faces a charge of first-degree murder in Windham Criminal Division of Vermont Superior Court in Brattleboro. He is accused in the shooting death of Sultan S. Rashed, 35, of Brattleboro, who was found dead Nov. 9, in a parked 2013 Ford Edge off Old Ferry Road in the town.
A couple of people who know Moffatt told police he owed Rashed roughly $10,000 in drug debts.
Moffatt had known Rashed for about two years and would buy cocaine from him, according to a police affidavit.
Prosecutors say establishing the drug relationship between Rashed and Moffatt is key to proving their murder case to a jury.
Judge Katherine Hayes recently granted Gartenstein’s request for a search warrant for the forensic examination of Moffatt’s iPhone, which police seized when he was arrested Nov. 13. Investigators believe his Gmail account may contain incriminating information.
The authorities have asked Google to preserve all data associated with Moffatt’s email between Nov. 7 and Nov. 13 as part of the ongoing Vermont State Police investigation, according to court documents filed by State Police Detective Sgt. Richard Holden. Police plan to track communications Moffatt made beginning from the day before Rashed’s death to the date of his apprehension in Sharon.
Holden wrote that based on his police training, drug dealers have conversations with their suppliers and customers over phone, text and email, commonly from their home or place of employment where they might expect privacy. The sales are set up through these forms of contact before any faceto-face interaction, he added.
According to an affidavit, a man, identified as Steven Jones, told police the day after Rashed’s body was found that he’d last seen Rashed alive Nov. 8 at about 8:15 p.m. when he met Rashed in a business parking lot on Old Ferry Road, which is off Route 5 near the Exit 3 interchange with Interstate 91, to buy cocaine.
Jones said when he entered the parking lot to meet Rashed, he saw another vehicle there and a man in the driver’s side, who appeared to be sleeping.
Jones said Rashed arrived soon after and told him that the man in the car was a “buddy,” according to the affidavit.
Jones told police he paid Rashed $300, and then went to get the cocaine, which Rashed had left for him in a tissue box of a truck bed in the upper parking lot. Jones said he saw Rashed drive to the upper parking lot and back in his vehicle on the left side of the other man’s car, so that Rashed’s passenger window was aligned with the other car’s driver’s side window.
He recalled for police that as he left the parking lot he saw a man standing in between the two parked vehicles.
Cellphone records and surveillance cameras in the area corroborate Jones’ story, according to police.
Prosecutors note in court documents that Jones will be available to testify at trial.
Rashed’s body was discovered the morning of Nov. 9 by an employee of one of the businesses.
Rashed leaves behind a wife and young son, as well as two brothers and two sisters. A third brother and his parents died earlier.
Moffatt is being held without bail at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt.
Judge Hayes denied in January the defense’s request to amend Moffatt’s bail, calling the evidence against him “overwhelming.”