Ian J. Kessel. (Lee County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office booking photograph.)
Ex-Hillie football standout Ian J. Kessel was freed after an apparent evidence mix-up last Thursday, but the former Haverhill High running back will have another day in court tomorrow.
Kessel and his co-defendant Dalvin F. Andino will be re-arraigned Wednesday, Sept. 20, six days after Kessel’s lawyer successfully argued that evidence was improperly listed.
“The charge against them alleged stealing money when the allegation is that they had stolen marijuana,” Carrie Kimball-Monahan, spokesperson for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett, told WHAV.
As WHAV previously reported, Kessel, 20, and Andino, then 19, were indicted by an Essex County grand jury in March 2016 stemming from an arrest in January 2016 at Forest Acres in Bradford. Both suspects, along with an unidentified 17-year-old juvenile, were charged with armed robbery during, what Haverhill police said, was a “drug deal gone bad.”
“The victim in this case made an arrangement to buy marijuana and was told to meet at Forest Acres Drive…When he went there, he was directed to get into a motor vehicle where a gun was put to his head. He was robbed of a good sum of money,” Haverhill Police Lt. Robert P. Pistone said at the time.
Kessel is represented by Boston attorney Hank Brennan who famously defended mobster James “Whitey” Bulger in 2013.