Another Guilty Plea Entered In Drug-related Murder

Richard S. Hartunian, United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, and Nicole M. Duve, District Attorney for St. Lawrence County, announce that Alan Jacobs, age 36, Hogansburg, New York, pled guilty last Friday in U.S. District Court in Utica in connection with the attempted robbery and killing of Daniel Simonds in St. Lawrence County on May 13, 2008.

Jacobs pled guilty to the Indictment, which charged him with conspiracy to engage in a Hobbs Act robbery. As part of the agreement, Jacobs agreed to a mandatory 20-year term of imprisonment and forfeiture in the amount of $666,466.82 in U.S. Currency. He also faces up to five years of supervised release following any period of incarceration and up to a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for September 23, 2011.

As part of his plea, Jacobs admitted that early on the morning of May 13, 2008, he and the others charged planned to rob Daniel Simonds of a large quantity of Canadian-grown marijuana and money he had stored at his residence at 649 Porter Lynch Road, Stockholm, New York. In furtherance of this plan, some of them went to Simonds’ residence, where they engaged in a physical confrontation with Simonds. During the confrontation, Simonds was shot once by one of his assailants. He died later that day at a hospital in Vermont.

Jacobs is the fifth person charged in this case to plead guilty. The others who have pled include Brian J. Latulipe, age 28, of Bombay, New York, Kaientanoron L. Swamp, age 29, of Snye, Quebec, Canada, Bryan Herne, aka Wildcat, age 31, of Hogansburg, New York, and Derek Cook, age 31, Snye, Quebec, Canada. The remaining defendants are two brothers, Chad Edwards, age 22, and Anson Edwards, age 24, both of Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. Anson and Chad Edwards are in Canadian custody pending their extradition to the United States to face these charges.

This prosecution was the result of an ongoing investigation undertaken by the St. Lawrence County District Attorney’s office in conjunction with the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s office, the New York State Police’s Major Crimes Unit, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.