[A] Poultney man who is facing state charges for allegedly hiding the body of a woman who died of a drug overdose has pleaded guilty to a federal offense of allowing out-of-state dealers to set up shop in his residence.
Wayne Oddo, 54, entered the guilty plea Friday in federal court in Burlington to breaking a law often referred to as the “crack-house statute,” according to federal prosecutors.
His change of plea comes nearly a year after police found the body of Alexandra Rooker, 26, of Fair Haven, in a shed on his property on Morse Hollow Road in Poultney.
Rooker’s cause of death was given as acute mixed intoxication, with three drugs found her system: morphine, methamphetamine and hydromorphone, according to a state death certificate. No one has been charged directly in connection with her death.
Prosecutors say Oddo was one of three Rutland County residents who pleaded guilty recently in federal court to a charge of providing out-of-state dealers with a local shelter or “base camp.”
The “crack-house” law prohibits making available a place, such as a residence, for the purpose of manufacturing, storing, distributing, or using any controlled substance.
“Facilitators must understand that such conduct will be met with felony charges,” U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, the top federal prosecutor in Vermont, said in a statement.
“Indeed,” she added, “prosecuting the in-state hosts and shutting down drug safe houses is a critical component of our strategy to dismantle drug pipelines and create a hostile environment for those who profit from the opioid addiction epidemic.”
Oddo faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced July 5. Prosecutors agreed as part of the plea deal to recommend that the judge sentence him “to the low end of the applicable sentencing guideline range.”
According to the agreement, Oddo admits that between January and March 2017 he allowed two New Jersey men to stay at his home, knowing that they were distributing heroin and crack cocaine in the Rutland County area.
In exchange for letting those men stay at the residence, the plea agreement stated, Oddo would receive “small user-amounts of heroin.”
The two men from New Jersey, Richard Torruellas (a.k.a. “Scoobs”) and Francesco Escribano (a.k.a. “Brisco”), recently pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to distribute heroin and crack cocaine and agreed to 54-month sentences, federal prosecutors said.
Oddo is still facing charges in state court. He pleaded not guilty last September in Rutland County Superior Court to two felonies: impeding a police investigation and unauthorized burial or removal of a dead body.
Oddo was initially charged with federal offenses in March 2017 when police said they found Rooker’s body in his shed. The state charges were brought later.
An autopsy on Rooker’s body revealed no sign of trauma, prosecutors said, and she may have been dead a week before police found her on March 15, 2017.
Rooker had been reported missing March 8, 2017, by family members who said they hadn’t heard from Rooker since March 2. She reportedly was last seen March 3, when a friend dropped her off at Oddo’s home on Morse Hollow Road, prosecutors said.
According to court records, Oddo had initially told police when they were searching for Rooker that she had been at his property but was no longer there. Later, when police arrived with a warrant, Oddo told then they could find Rooker’s body in the shed, court records stated.
It wasn’t the first time a dead body had been found on Oddo’s property in Poultney.
In September 2016, a New York man also died at Oddo’s property. A state death certificate lists the death as caused by ongoing medical conditions along with with “acute heroin intoxication” a contributing factor.
After police found Rooker’s body on his property in March 2017, Oddo told authorities that he let others use his home as a base as they dealt drugs in Rutland and other nearby towns, according to court records.
Oddo said they would stay at his home and in exchange provide him drugs, according to court filings.
“Oddo advised that he knew it was illegal to allow individuals to stay at his residence and sell illegal narcotics but he did it anyway because he was trying to help people,” court records stated.
Police, when they executed the search warrant that led to the discovery of Rooker’s body, also seized firearms from Oddo’s home, including an AK-47 and a .22-caliber Ruger rifle, according to court records.
The plea deal in the federal case against Oddo follows a motion filed in the case by his attorney, Steven Barth, a federal public defender. That motion sought to throw out statements made by Oddo to police who, according to that filing, pressed on with interrogating him even after he asked for a lawyer.
Prosecutors had not filed a response to that motion.
Barth could not immediately be reached Friday for comment.
The other two Rutland County residents who recently pleaded guilty to providing shelter to out-of-state drug dealers, according to federal prosecutors, were:
• Sheri Fitzgerald, 54, of Rutland, who lived in a Granger Street apartment in Rutland in March 2016 and allowed an out-of-state heroin dealer to stay at her residence for multiple days and deal drugs from there, according to court records.
Fitzgerald assisted the drug dealer by arranging and completing drug sales, federal prosecutors said, and, in turn, received heroin in exchange for letting him stay at her apartment.
• Richard Webster, 60, who lived on Harrison Avenue in West Rutland in the winter of 2017, allowed one of the men who stayed at Oddo’s residence to also stay at his residence during the daytime, prosecutors said. In exchange, they said Webster received heroin from the man.
Oddo, Fitzgerald and Webster, following short periods of incarceration, have since been released to take part in residential drug treatment programs.
Fitzgerald and Webster also take part in the federal drug court program, and if they successfully complete the one-year, court-supervised initiative they become eligible for a probationary sentence rather additional incarceration, federal prosecutors said.