Bucks County prosecutors charged a 26-year-old man who fired a gun at police during a narcotics operation this month with attempted murder and related crimes, authorities said Tuesday. It’s the latest development in a multistate investigation that led to the recovery of eight firearms and $4 million in drugs.
Police arrested the man, Nicholas Sperando of Philadelphia, on Jan. 15 after the shooting at his rowhouse on Fairdale Road in Northeast Philadelphia, according to Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan’s office.
Sperando’s home was one of several locations involved in an extensive drug trafficking organization, officials said.
After announcing their intent to serve a warrant at Sperando’s home that day, agents with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office and Pennsylvania state troopers prepared to breach Sperando’s door with a battering ram.
Instead, they were met with gunfire from inside the home.
After firing a round, Sperando fired a second shot through the front door, “directly targeting the position where the officers had been standing,” officials said.
No officers fired their weapons or were injured in the operation.
“This cowardly act against our officers was an attack on the rule of law, and our office will always protect those who risk their lives to protect us, even when that happens across county lines,” Khan said when announcing the charges.
Sperando surrendered during the incident and is being held without bail on two counts of attempted murder and attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, as well as three counts of aggravated assault and related drug crimes.
The arrest, Khan’s office said, was the culmination of a monthslong investigation that “dismantled” a multimillion-dollar trafficking organization.
For months, authorities said, undercover officers had purchased drugs from Sperando in Levittown and Northeast Philadelphia. Bucks County officials asserted control of the Philadelphia jurisdiction for the sake of their investigation, according to officials.
Investigators searched Sperando’s residence and recovered a FN Herstal 5.7 pistol used in the shooting — including a live round jammed in the gun, which, in prosecutors’ view, likely prevented fatalities among law enforcement officers.
Meanwhile, investigators found a variety of controlled substances and other weapons located across Sperando’s residence, his place of work on James Street, and a stash house on Day Street.
At the stash house, officers arrested another man, David Tierney, who they say is also involved in the operation.
Investigators seized an AR-style rifle, a Glock handgun with extended magazine, and bulk quantities of marijuana and proceeds from drug sales from Sperando’s home, while the stash house yielded a firearm under a pillow and a trailer containing “enormous quantities” of marijuana and THC vaporizers.
At Sperando’s workplace, which officials did not name, officers recovered a Mossberg pump shotgun, a Ruger .380, and a “significant supply” of psilocybin mushrooms and edibles.
In all, officials said, the operation yielded 300 pounds of marijuana and 17,000 vaporizers, as well as 80 pounds of THC concentrate, 600 bags of THC edibles, 15 pounds of mushrooms, 75 mushroom edibles, 300 Adderall pills, and two ounces of cocaine.
Sperando is being held in custody without bail. Tierney is being held on a $250,000 bail. A third suspect in the operation, Nicholas Keenoy, surrendered to authorities on Tuesday.