[B]URLINGTON – Prosecutors say Michael Villanueva worked his way up from a “point guard” to a “lieutenant” and eventually to the leader of a drug distribution ring that brought several pounds of crack cocaine and heroin from New York City to be sold in Vermont.
Judge Christina Reiss sentenced the 37-year-old Bronx, New York, man to 10 years in prison during a hearing Friday in federal court in Burlington.
Villanueva had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute over a kilogram of heroin and over 280 grams of crack cocaine between July 2014 and September 2015.
The conspiracy, which involved several other co-defendants, focused much of its activity in and around Malletts Bay Avenue in Winooski, Assistant U.S. Michael Drescher, the prosecutor in the case, wrote in a sentencing document.
For much of that time, prosecutors say, Villanueva lived at an apartment in St. Albans, but most of the group’s drug distribution occurred in Winooski, with Villanueva and his co-conspirators operating out of residences on Malletts Bay Avenue.
That conspiracy to sell heroin and crack cocaine from those residences was the “brainchild of its founder,” Michael Brockenbaugh, also of the Bronx, New York, who earlier this year was sentenced to 14 years in prison, the prosecutor wrote.
“The conspiracy — under both Brockenbaugh and Villanueva’s leadership — utilized mass text messaging to its customer lists, touting ‘Hump Day Specials,’ ‘TGIF specials,’ and ‘Happy Hour’ specials, during which customers could get a free hit while purchasing drug, or purchase drugs at a temporarily discounted price,” the prosecutor wrote. “The conspiracy generated several tens of thousands of dollars.”
The prosecutor, in his sentencing document, outlined how Villanueva worked his way up in the drug-dealing organization from “point guard,” supervising the distribution from the Malletts Bay Avenue apartments, to “lieutenant,” the person all point guards reported to, to the overall leader.
“The conspiracy utilized ‘stash houses,’ where inventory was stored, and ‘trap houses,’ where the drugs were sold at retail,” Drescher wrote. “The conspiracy utilized guns, violence and exploited the labor and homes of addicts.”
Villanueva became “the boss” of the organization after Brockenbaugh “moved his focus” on drug distribution from Vermont to Maine, according to the prosecutor.
“By any measure, the scope of the conspiracy was impressive,” Drescher added. “At least 20 people have been convicted based on their participation in it.”
In court Friday, Villanueva said he accepted responsibility for his actions, adding that he has been working while behind bars since arrest in September 2015 to turn his life around.
He talked of programs he has taking part in to stay healthy and away from drugs, as well as counseling sessions that have made him see the need to take a new direction in life.
“This is on me,” he said of the trouble he has found himself in as a result of dealing drugs. “There’s no more excuses for me.”
Villanueva told the judge he looked forward to the day he gets out of jail, obtains a job, and becomes a father his three children can be proud of.
Following his prison term, Villanueva was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release.
Richard Goldsborough, Villanueva’s attorney, told the judge that his client suffered from a tough upbringing as a child, and described both his parents as crack cocaine addicts.
The attorney, in his sentencing document, wrote that in 2014, when his client’s brother died, he fell into a depression. It was at that point, Goldsborough wrote, that Brockenbaugh approached Villanueva and offered him work in Vermont overseeing his drug operation.
“Mr. Villanueva,” Goldsborough wrote, “desperate for money, strung out on narcotics and depressed, accepted the offer and moved to Vermont, where he developed a seven-gram-per-day heroin addiction — an expensive habit that he supported with his work for Brockenbaugh.”
Villanueva, in receiving a 10-year prison, did get a break from a potentially much longer term of incarceration.
Judge Reiss earlier in the hearing cited Villanueva’s “substantial” assistance to investigators in deviating from a possible maximum sentence of life behind bars. The judge also spoke during the hearing of Villanueva’s “acceptance of responsibility” for his actions.
In sentencing Villanueva to 10 years in prison, Reiss said from the bench, “It’s a very lengthy period of time for a drug case.”
However, she said, Villanueva was key player in a “for-profit conspiracy” responsible for feeding people’s addiction to an “evil poison.”
