Frederick Wright, 34, of Hartford, was sentenced in the city’s federal court on Thursday to 15 years behind bars for committing several armed robberies in 2020.
HARTFORD, Conn. — A Hartford man was sentenced in the city’s federal court to 15 years in prison on Thursday as punishment for committing a series of armed robberies in 2020.
Frederick Wright, 34, will have his sentence followed by four years of supervised release, according to a report from the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
Prosecutors proved in court that Wright was responsible for several armed robberies in which he stole from victims who responded to his Facebook Marketplace posts advertising the sale of a vehicle.
Court documents and statements showed that Wright would post a vehicle for sale on Facebook Marketplace and arrange to meet a potential purchaser.
He would allow the purchaser to test drive the vehicle before negotiating a price.
However, when the victim would give Wright the cash to make the purchase, he would pull out a gun, threaten to shoot them, steal their cash and sometimes take other valuable items.
Between July and November 2020, Wright and others robbed at least five victims in Bloomfield and Windsor.
Wright was ultimately arrested on Nov. 24, 2020. That day, investigators conducted a court-authorized search of Wright’s home in Hartford, where they found a loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol that he and others used to commit robberies.
Prosecutors note that Wright was previously convicted in state court of first-degree attempted robbery and failure to appear. He was on state special parole when he committed the robberies in 2020.
Wright has been detained for the past five-plus years.
He pleaded guilty on Feb. 1, 2022, to three counts of obstruction of interstate commerce by robbery, two counts of brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence and one count of unlawful gun possession by a felon.
A judge on Thursday also ordered Wright to pay $14,429 in restitution to the victims of his crimes.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as well as the Hartford Police Department.
Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office encouraged those who sell and buy items online and need to meet an individual in person to complete a sale to use a visible, monitored location.
Many local police departments designate parking spaces outside their stations to facilitate these transactions.
Dalton Zbierski is a story desk editor and writer at FOX61 News. He can be reached at dzbierski@FOX61.com.
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date: 2026-02-13 05:23:00
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