Farmington Police: Search and Seizure of Zordan's Guns Was Not Illegal

While some media outlets have reported that Torrington resident Robert Zordan’s defense called the police’s search and seizure of 16 guns from his home “illegal,” the Farmington Police Department is setting the record straight.

“That’s not what happened,” Farmington police Lt. Marshall Porter said. “The ruling in Bantam was not that we conducted an illegal search. The ruling was that the state did not hold a hearing within the mandated time frame. I’m very comfortable with the investigation that our officers did in this case.”

Per the ruling, Farmington police had to return Zordan’s guns. However one of them was an illegal machine gun, Porter said, so that was the only one police did not give back.

Zordan’s criminal case is pending in Hartford Superior Court. He was charged with illegal possession of an assault weapon, second-degree breach of peace and second-degree threatening, according to the state judicial website.

Farmington and Torrington police searched Zordan’s Torrington home in late December. Farmington officers seized 16 firearms and Zordan, 54, was taken to the hospital to be evaluated, according to court documents. Zordan is Torrington's former public safety commissioner, the Register Citizen previously reported.

That was after a coworker alerted police that Zordan told him on Dec. 27 that he was going to get a gun to shoot specific colleagues at Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corporation in Farmington after his department was criticized by a superior. Zordan was a project manager there at the time.

Police obtained what is called a “risk warrant,” or a type of search and seizure warrant, on Dec. 28 according to court documents. 

“Those warrants are designed to essentially seize weapons from people that may be a risk to themselves or others,” Porter said Thursday, pointing to individuals who are suicidal or who have made threats as examples.

By Connecticut law, “the state is required to hold a hearing for that person within 14 days” of executing the risk warrant, Porter said.  The purpose of the hearing is “to determine their eligibility to keep their guns,” he said.

According to court documents, a Bantam Superior Court clerk sent Zordan a notice for a Jan. 15 hearing, thinking he was served the warrant on Jan. 1. But a motion filed by the defense stated that “the warrant took place more than 14 days prior to the hearing date,” so the court determined that the case “lacks jurisdiction.”

The hearing on the gun seizure by law had to take place in the court district near where he lives, which is why Bantam is handling that portion of the case, according to Porter.

“What happened in this particular case was that the hearing was not held in the statutorily mandated 14 day time frame,” Porter said. “The judge ruled that proper procedure was not followed. The state did not hold the hearing before him in that time frame, so the judge ruled that he would have to get his weapons back.”

Zordan hasn’t entered a plea yet to the criminal threatening charges. He is next scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 23.