Out of state gang member used juveniles to distribute, pull trigger, prosecutor says

By Mike Donoghue, Vermont News First

A major out-of-state drug dealer, who uses multiple juveniles to bolster his lucrative illegal business in the Northeast Kingdom, is part of a conspiracy linked to at least four Vermont homicides, according to a federal prosecutor.

Jose Jusino, 25, appeared briefly in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Friday afternoon and is due back this week for a detention hearing.

He pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring with others in Vermont and elsewhere to distribute cocaine and fentanyl between at least December 2023 and February 7, 2024. Members of the conspiracy often carried loaded firearms, officials said.

Jusino also denied in court a separate charge of distributing cocaine on Jan. 3 with Jakiy Tramaine Corey Keith, 24, of Derby and also Hartford, Conn., records show.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office maintains Jusino, who also is known as Derrick Rose, is a severe danger to the community and wants him detained pending trial in federal court.

“The nature of the charges is inherently serious given the types and amounts of controlled substances distributed by the defendant and his co-conspirators — many of whom are juveniles — and the possession and use of loaded firearms in conjunction with this case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher wrote in Jusino’s detention motion.

“The conspiracy appears to have been related to at least four independent homicides in Vermont. The case is among the most serious charged in this district,” Lasher said.

Authorities have said out-of-state gang members setting up drug operations in Vermont very often recruit juveniles for the business because nothing happens to them. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has a policy of normally avoiding prosecutions for anybody under age 18. At the state level, there is a recent push by some Vermont legislators to raise the age of adult accountability for most serious crimes from 16 to 25 years old. The state of Vermont has few services and no facility to hold juveniles involved in dangerous crimes.

Jusino, when not staying in Troy and other Northeast Kingdom homes, has ties to both the Hartford, Conn. and Springfield, Mass. areas, officials said.

Jusino’s involvement in the drug conspiracy case in Vermont became public after he was arrested in Hartford, Conn. on Oct. 2. Until his arrest, Jusino’s name had been under seal at the federal courthouse in Burlington. He is the fifth person charged in an updated indictment filed in March by a federal grand jury in Burlington.

Jusino had been on the run since at least the indictment was returned, officials said.

A federal prosecutor in Connecticut, after Jusino’s arrest last week, outlined in court the dangerousness of the suspect.

“Jose Jusino is a leader in a drug-trafficking organization tied to multiple homicides in Vermont in 2023 and 2024. Jusino is responsible for sending dealers, many of them juveniles, to Vermont where they are hosted by in-state residents for purposes of drug distribution,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean P. Mahard noted.

“The organization grosses tens of thousands of dollars in drug proceeds weekly, and the dealers overseen by Jusino obtain firearms from drug users for their own possession and use and for distribution in Springfield and Hartford,” Mahard wrote in court papers.

Federal Magistrate Judge Robert A. Richardson in Connecticut agreed during an Oct. 2 hearing that Jusino’s lawyer did not offer any evidence to support release. Jusino left the door open to contest the detention request when he arrived in Vermont for a court hearing.

Burlington lawyer Jason Sawyer, who was appointed to defend Jusino, asked the court on Friday afternoon to give him until late December to review the case and file any pre-trial motions. Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle set a Dec. 30 deadline.

U.S. deputy marshals took him to the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans pending further hearings.

Lasher’s motion noted that it appears Jusino has been involved in drug trafficking in Vermont since at least 2020, although he is spending less time here recently because his business is in full operation.

“Witnesses have described the defendant’s hub-and-spoke distribution network in Vermont, including identifying locations where he sends young conspirators to be hosted by Vermont residents and receive periodic resupplies of narcotics at his direction,” Lasher noted.

“The defendant remotely coordinated drug transactions that were completed by his co-conspirators who were physically present in Vermont,” Lasher said. He cited Jusino negotiating a January 2024 sale of crack cocaine in Troy, but directing the customer to Keith to complete the transaction.

The written detention motion by Lasher never identified the names of the victims in the four homicides linked to the conspiracy.

Lasher did mention in open court one homicide case linked to the conspiracy – the fatal shooting of Kayla Wright, 29, of Derby, whose body was found in the Missisquoi River in Troy in February. Wright was shot multiple times, including once in the head, state police said.

Keith, also known as “AB” and “Anthony Borrow,” has been charged in state court with first degree murder in the Feb. 2 death of Wright, police said. He has pleaded guilty.

Aaron Camp, 34, of Derby and Terron “Josh” Pendleton, 34, of Waterbury also were charged with being accessories after the murder by helping clean up the shooting scene inside the Troy home, police said. They said Camp also was charged with unauthorized burial or removal of a body. They have pleaded not guilty.

Jusino and Keith are charged in federal court along with Bryanna Fields Rooney, 29, her husband, Thomas P. Rooney, 34, and her father Holly Fields Jr., 55, all of Troy with the drug conspiracy.

The Rooneys and Fields also are charged as owners at 7021 Vermont 100 with operating a drug house, records show. It was used for the unlawful manufacturing, storing, distributing and using of both cocaine and fentanyl, according to the indictment.

Fields was living at the Troy home when Wright was last heard from on Feb. 2 and her cell phone was recovered at the Rooney home on Feb. 3, police said. She was found Feb. 6 in a large toolbox that lodged on a sandbar in the Missisquoi River, police said. It was in the area of Big Falls of the Missisquoi State Park on River Road.

Fields also was living at a residence on Farrar Road in Newport Town when Wilmer Rodriguez, 27, of Hartford, Conn. was found fatally shot about 6:45 p.m. Oct. 14, 2023, police said. He died from multiple gunshot wounds. The home was used “as a place to store, prepare, distribute and use drugs,” Lasher has said in court papers.

The government has asked that the Rooneys, Fields, Keith and Jusino forfeit all drug proceeds, including $11,458 seized as part of the wide-ranging investigation.

Kayla Wright came from a well-known local family that included a twin sister, Samantha Perkins, who reported her missing on Feb. 3.

The detention hearing on Jusino could resume on Tuesday afternoon. The government is pushing for him jailed pending trial due to his actions and history. He has no known employment except for drug dealing, Lasher said.

“The defendant’s history and characteristics suggests that he represents a continuing danger to the community and a substantial risk of flight,” Lasher said in his four-page motion. “This individual is a multi-state offender.”

His criminal history includes convictions in February 2022 for felony larceny and misdemeanor reckless endangerment stemming from an October 2019 incident in Hartford, Conn., records show. That actually involved an assault with a firearm and robbery, Lasher said.

Police arrested Jusino in March 2020 for the robbery case and he was released. Five months later he was stopped in a vehicle, along with his mother, as they were southbound near Lyndon on Interstate 91, records show. A police K-9 alerted on the car and investigators found $9,400 in his mother’s purse. It included $180 with serialized numbers from bills police used the night before during a drug sale by Jusino in Barton, Lasher said.

Jusino was arrested again on charges of resisting arrest as part of a shooting investigation in Manchester, N.H., Lasher said. Jusino was in a car that initially stopped for police, but later took off, ended up on a dead end street where his vehicle hit two cars, including a police cruiser, officials said. Lasher said Jusino was convicted for resisting arrest and it appeared he was given a deferred sentence if he engaged in good behavior for one year, but the final adjudication was unknown.

Lasher said Jusino has limited ties to Vermont – mostly through drug dealing. Lasher said Jusino appears to have strong family ties, but some of those are through drug trafficking.

The Vermont Drug Task Force, Vermont State Police, the Orleans County Sheriff’s Department, Newport City Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations have been working on the long-term investigation.