Now DEA busts him for coke and fentanyl charges again locally
By Michael Donoghue
Vermont News First
A convicted Vermont drug dealer and tax cheat, who received clemency from President Joe Biden last year while serving a 19-year federal prison sentence, is back behind bars after he was arrested in Chittenden County as part of a major cocaine and fentanyl trafficking ring, according to law enforcement officials and records.
Todd “Rocky” Jarvis, 54, of Burlington was one of 2,490 prisoners nationwide to receive pardon or clemency orders signed on Jan. 17, 2025 by President Biden three days before leaving the White House. It was the largest one-day clearance by a U.S. President.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Vermont, in conjunction with Essex Police, said in court papers it was told by an informant that Jarvis brought one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of fentanyl and four kilograms of powder cocaine to Vermont from each trip he made to Albany, N.Y. Jarvis reportedly charged $34,000 for a kilogram of cocaine, a DEA special agent said in a court affidavit.
After extensive investigation since January, the DEA said it stopped a Volkswagen Tiguan in Shelburne about 12:05 a.m. Monday containing Jarvis, also known as Mike Hunt, and driven by his associate, Kylei Brown, 22, of Winooski, court records show.
Jarvis was found with 18 ounces of cocaine and nearly one ounce of fentanyl, the DEA said in court papers. The two bags were found inside a single vacuum-sealed bag that he was carrying.
They were both jailed on drug charges pending separate initial hearings before Federal Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle. They were not seen in court on Monday and are likely to be brought in Tuesday. Jarvis is detained at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans and Brown is jailed at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington.
The drug seizure comes as Jarvis has been participating in the Federal Court’s Re-Entry Initiative Program in Burlington as part of his supervised release from prison for his convictions for conspiracy to distribute heroin and crack cocaine and for failing to file a 2008 tax return, court records show.
The re-entry program has not been going good lately. Jarvis used cocaine and fentanyl on April 6 and confirmed with a urine sample two days later, according to a petition filed by the U.S Probation Office. He also used cocaine on April 19 and Jarvis confirmed it to his probation officer and with a urine sample, court records show.
Jarvis was the mastermind of the drug trafficking conspiracy that targeted Vermont addicts between the spring of 2006 and fall of 2009 involving eight people – including his girlfriend — charged and convicted in federal court by 2012.
Now Jarvis is back at it in Vermont, according to the DEA in a sworn affidavit.
A DEA agent said he knows Vermont is an “end-user state” in the drug distribution supply chain. As a result, higher-level suppliers often bring drugs to Vermont from locations in and around large population centers for distribution and retail sale in Vermont.
“These higher-level drug suppliers often conspire with Vermont residents to facilitate transactions with local clientele. This is because such Vermont residents often have knowledge of and close connections to local drug users and retail distributors who reside in Vermont. These individuals are necessary to run a successful drug trafficking enterprise, however, a distributor from outside of Vermont does not have ready access to this customer base,” the court affidavit noted.
“Organizational leaders, like Jarvis, use these Vermont residents as ‘middlemen’ between themselves and local distributors to protect themselves from law enforcement scrutiny and to obscure their identity from the end users of the drugs they distribute. Additionally, a ‘middleman’’ allows an organizational leader like Jarvis to operate in multiple locations simultaneously, since organizational leaders can work with multiple middlemen at the same time,” it said.
“I am aware that the price of various drugs in Vermont is substantially higher than in many larger population centers. As a result, a drug trafficker like Jarvis can acquire large quantities of drugs for a comparatively inexpensive price in a large population center and can then sell these drugs in Vermont at a higher price, thereby increasing his profit margin,” the DEA said.
Jarvis was living with a girlfriend on Elmwood Avenue near “The Pods” — a temporary housing facility operated by the Champlain Housing Trust.
After the Shelburne traffic stop, investigators applied to Federal Judge Mary Kay Lanthier shortly after 2 a.m. Monday for permission to search Brown’s upstairs apartment at 98 Malletts Bay Ave. in Winooski, court records show.
A brown powdery substance in a clear and knotted Ziploc bag and a yellow digital scale were seized, court records show.
The DEA said the investigation revealed that Jarvis, formerly of the Bronx, took short duration trips back to New York City “that are consistent with trafficking in controlled substances.” One source reported the trips were every two weeks to get resupplied with suspected drugs, the DEA said in court papers.
During one trip the investigation revealed that Jarvis left a residence in the Bronx with a case of water that was believed to contain suspected drugs and headed back to the Malletts Bay Avenue apartment in Winooski. A DEA agent said it was unreasonable to make a 10-hour round-trip drive to pick up a case of water. He said Jarvis drove past countless stores selling bottled water.
President Biden on a single day in January 2025 provided about two dozen persons, including Jarvis, convicted in Vermont and sentenced to prison to receive either a full pardon or clemency for their court sentences.
Federal Judge J. Garvan Murtha imposed the 19-year sentence on May 1, 2012 in the drug conspiracy case and issued a 12 month concurrent sentence for failing to file his 2008 federal income taxes, records show. Murtha also ordered the prison term be served closed to Jarvis’ home in New York City.
The federal judiciary and prosecutors in Vermont appeared shocked by Biden’s clemency move.
The outgoing U.S. Attorney for Vermont, Nikolas “Kolo” Kerest, said on Sunday afternoon Jan. 19, 2025 that his office learned on Saturday afternoon that among those commuted by Biden, who was 82 years-old, were more than 20 individuals convicted by federal prosecutors in Vermont in recent years.
“The Office had no opportunity to provide input about and had no advance knowledge of the President’s intent to commute the sentences of these individuals,” Kerest told Vermont News First. Kerest, who was appointed by Biden, resigned effective that Monday when President Donald Trump was sworn in.
Three months later during an unrelated sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ophardt, under questioning from Chief Federal Judge Christina Reiss, told the court that the Biden White House never contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont or anybody else in the state before signing his name to the orders.
Reiss questioned during the hearing whether a proposed 54-month prison sentence was proper in light of Biden’s action slashing the sentence of a co-defendant in the case.
Ophardt said the sweeping commutations of sentences by Biden failed to make sense.
Ophardt repeated in court the public statement issued to Vermont News First by Kerest that President Biden and the White House never consulted with local federal prosecutors before cutting the prison sentences for those commuted.
Ophardt said Justice Department prosecutors across the nation were left in the dark by Biden.
“Your honor, the prior administration did not consult with the Department (of Justice) generally on those commutations,” Ophardt told Judge Reiss in open court.
“I believe it has now become public that the Pardon Attorney was not consulted with the list and there is actually folks that the Pardon Attorney was advocating for who were left off the list,” he said at the time.
“It was a list that appears to have been developed solely by the White House without input from the Department,” Ophardt said.
It later became known that Biden’s staff had used auto-pens to sign executive documents, many of them believed unknown to the President, whose health continued to fade fast in his final year.
Biden clemency orders dated Jan. 17, 2025 said he did it with the understanding that he was commuting the total sentence of imprisonment effective July 16, 2025. He also agreed to remit up to $10,000 of the unpaid balance of the fine or restitution amount imposed by the court that remains at the end of each person’s respective sentence.
Biden agreed to leave intact any term of supervised release or other components of the sentence. For Jarvis that was 5 years of expected supervision by the U.S. Probation Office, but that has failed based on the positive drug tests and his new arrest, court records show.
When Jarvis was first arrested in 2010 for the drug trafficking conspiracy charges, prosecutors noted he had a terrible track record. Prosecutors noted he had no track record of employment.
“Rather his criminal history indicates that he has spent decades enmeshed in the drug business, and related crimes, such as firearm offenses,” then Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan wrote at the time.
“His record shows that, even on parole, the defendant reverts to this behavior. He implemented the charged conspiracy while on prole in New York State, and he is currently incarcerated on New York State parole violation charges stemming from a motor vehicle stop in which officers found a gun in his car, Nolan wrote in request to detain Jarvis on Sept. 14, 2010.
Biden’s last minute pardons and clemency included freeing a man involved in a drug-related homicide in the Northeast Kingdom in October 2018.
The last-minute sweeping commutation order helped Biden establish a new national record for Presidents setting prisoners free. The President hinted that Friday that he might issue more pardons and commutations before leaving the White House the following Monday.
Biden followed up with pardons for his siblings and their spouses. They came one month after Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, for tax and gun crimes.