PITTSBORO — Pittsboro resident Kevin Laliberte, the man arrested and charged in September for firing a weapon inside Pittsboro’s State Employees Credit Union and holding the bank’s manager hostage, was taken into federal custody on Monday after he was indicted by a federal grand jury in the North Carolina Middle District for possession of a firearm by a felon on Nov. 26.
Laliberte pled not guilty to the charges. He remains in federal custody and is scheduled to return to federal court in February.
On September 12, Laliberte allegedly entered the SECU on East Street in Pittsboro, fired a gunshot into a ceiling tile and then ordered all the staff to leave but the bank manager. Laliberte held the manager until extensive negotiations with the manager and law enforcement resulted in his surrender to N.C. State Highway Patrol Trooper Rodney Cook.
Following his surrender, law enforcement executed a search warrant on Laliberte’s residence and seized items including multiple boxes of ammunition, several handguns and rifles, holsters and a bullet-proof vest, according to a report filed with the Chatham County Clerk of Court. Laliberte was charged with one count of second-degree kidnapping, two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon, 15 counts of discharging a weapon into occupied property and one count of injury to real property.
But in light of the federal charges, the local charges were dropped by the District Attorney. According to multiple law enforcement sources, local officers had worked with federal agents to secure the indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Laliberte was released from the Chatham County Detention Center on Monday into the custody of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents executing the federal warrant issued on the charges.
Laliberte had been previously convicted in Virginia on charges including misdemeanor assault, involuntary manslaughter and possession of marijuana.
According to the United States Sentencing Commission, the Middle District of North Carolina’s caseload has the highest percentage of cases for possession of a firearm by a felon in 2012, the last time the statistics were compiled. Nationwide, about 96 percent of those convicted on those federal charges received jail time, a much higher rate than those convicted on the state level, according to law enforcement.
Casey Mann can be reached at CaseyMann@Chathamnr.com.
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