Throughout his 32-year career with the Bremerton Police Department, detective Roy Alloway scoffed at rules and regulations.
He treated federal laws with similar respect. Now U.S. attorneys are handing him his attitude, gift-wrapped in a recommendation that would send him to federal prison for almost four years.
Alloway, 57, sold guns illegally – more than 700 between 2005 and 2010, and possibly twice that many, prosecutors say. He banked the money – more than $178,000 – and didn’t report it on his income taxes.
According to prosecutors, 77 of those guns were seized in drug raids in which Alloway was a participant or an insider with direct access to the seized weapons. He spent a decade as a point man for WestNET, a federal drug task force based in Kitsap County.
In October, Alloway pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful firearms dealing and filing false tax returns. At 1 p.m. today, he faces sentencing at U.S. District Court in Tacoma. Judge Ronald Leighton will decide the ex-cop’s fate.
Reached via email, Alloway declined to make a statement before the hearing. His attorney, Robert Goldsmith, is arguing for 12 months of electronic home detention and two years of probation. Alloway has already agreed to pay $8,635 in back taxes.
“For a first offender who has lived an exemplary life, a prison sentence of any length would be harsh and life threatening,” Goldsmith wrote in a defense memorandum.
Federal prosecutors want more: a prison sentence of 37 to 46 months, the high end of the standard range for Alloway’s crimes.
The recommendation appears in a searing 13-page sentencing memorandum that underlines the backdrop of Alloway’s crimes.
Over a five-year period, agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives twice warned him that he needed a license to sell firearms, the record states. Fellow sellers, including a one-time business partner, echoed those warnings.
The license was a five-page document, requiring fingerprints, photo ID, a background check and $200. Prosecutors describe the application as “relatively simple.”
Alloway ignored the warnings. He briefly joined a friend and fellow officer in a gun-sales business in 2006, but shortly broke away on his own, selling without a license. He said he would claim to be a collector if authorities asked him about his sales, the record states.
“Rather than abide by the law, he looked for ways to evade it,” prosecutors wrote. “His behavior demonstrated a lack of respect for the law, and showed that he either did not care about the law, believed that the law did not apply to him, or believed that he was smarter than anyone who might eventually investigate him.”
He was more than a collector; prosecutors say his hobby became an obsession. They investigated other illegal sellers during the same time frame as their probe of Alloway’s activities. Their sales volumes were a fraction of Alloway’s output, records state.
Alloway’s defense memorandum includes letters of support from family members and co-workers, including fellow police officers.
His doctor says he has back problems and a heart condition, aggravated by the court proceedings. His wife says he’s the sole support for his family and grandchildren. His daughter says her father has always been there for her.
His co-workers – current and retired police officers – say he’s an honest man who wouldn’t intentionally violate the law.
“His ethics and honesty are unquestionable,” wrote Troy Wiktorek, a former Shelton police officer. “He has served our country in the Air Force and served his community for over 30 years in the Bremerton Police Department.”
Many of his co-workers refer to Alloway’s decade-long stint with the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNET). Over time, Alloway earned a reputation as WestNET’s go-to man on marijuana growing operations. Though he received multiple commendations during his career in Bremerton, his personnel file also reveals multiple suspensions and reprimands. Many revolved around ethical lapses and indifference to rules and legal procedure.
The busts for WestNET often included weapons seizures. They provided Alloway with a long-running source for his gun sales, which started in earnest around 2004, records state. Guns seized during the raids were sold off to outside agencies, including a Tacoma-based outlet called Law Enforcement Equipment Distribution.
Alloway knew the custody chain. His side business was insider trading, cowboy style. He followed guns from the evidence room to the cash register, even touring the evidence room to select which guns were the best prospects for sales, prosecutors state.
He sold guns indiscriminately, without background checks, preferring cheap weapons, including semi-automatic assault rifles and handguns favored by street criminals. Several guns Alloway sold were later tied to crimes, including a robbery and an assault, prosecutors say. Two guns Alloway sold had been stolen from their original owners.
His job compounded the seriousness of his crimes, prosecutors say. Alloway was a cop. He was supposed to know better. Instead, he used his position as leverage.
“Not only did Alloway exhibit an alarming degree of hypocrisy and callousness in his chosen side-business, but at times he even used his status as a police officer to further his criminal activity,” prosecutors wrote. “… All of this is compounded by Alloway’s status as a police officer for over thirty years – he personally saw the harm that firearms can do in society. In light of all of this, his behavior was reckless, callous, and offensive in the extreme.”
Among the documents filed in Alloway’s defense is a commendation from the Bremerton Police Department received when he retired in 2010. Signed by Police Chief Craig Rogers, the commendation cites Alloway’s decade of service to WestNET, and nods to Alloway’s late-career stint with the Bremerton department’s special operations group, which seized drugs and cash from arrested offenders.
“In addition to these seizures in 2009, Detective Alloway was responsible for the removal of over 23 firearms from the hands of criminals,” the commendation states.
Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486 sean.robinson@ thenewstribune.com
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