Updated at 5:11 p.m.
A Homeland Security investigation in Rutland led to the arrest on Wednesday of a fugitive accused of selling fentanyl and cocaine.
Homeland Security Investigations — the investigatory branch of the federal Department of Homeland Security — along with the Rutland City Police Department and Windsor County Sheriff’s Department arrested Rockylane “Rizzo” Lewis, 33, in Rutland on Wednesday.
An affidavit filed in federal court — written by Tyler Billings, a task force officer with Homeland Security and a detective for the Rutland City police — describes the more than six-month operation that led to Lewis’s arrest.
Billings describes Lewis as the leader of a drug trafficking operation, but wrote that the “investigation is still ongoing and several co-conspirators have not been identified.”
Using a confidential informant, police documented 14 controlled drug purchases with members of Lewis’s drug trafficking operation, according to court documents. After obtaining a search warrant, police arrested Lewis at an apartment on Granger Street in Rutland on Wednesday.
At the scene, officers report they discovered more than 50 grams of bulk fentanyl, crack cocaine and a 9mm handgun.
Authorities interviewed Lewis later that day at the Rutland City Police Department, during which he “initially did not deny selling cocaine and heroin,” according to Billings. Lewis also acknowledged to police that several warrants had been issued for his arrest in Massachusetts and said “he had been on the run since June 1, 2023,” according to the affidavit.
In the interview, Lewis told police he first came to Rutland last Fourth of July for a monster truck rally.
Lewis had been free while awaiting trial in Massachusetts following an arrest in September 2020, court documents indicate. In that case, he is charged with possession of a large-capacity firearm in the commission of a felony, and four charges of drug possession with intent to distribute, among other charges.
On Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont announced in a press release that it had charged Lewis with cocaine distribution.
Lewis was being held at Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility in Rutland. At a court appearance Friday afternoon, Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle ordered him detained pending trial, according to the release.
Homeland Security Investigations deferred a request for comment to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Vermont, which referred to its press release.
