By Michael Donoghue
Vermont News First
A Colchester man has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for helping organize a drug robbery that resulted in the 2022 fatal shooting of a competing drug dealer in Franklin County and that tore apart the victim’s family.
A federal court jury convicted Dominique “Wop” Troupe, 39, of Bay Road on four felony drug, gun and robbery charges following a six-day trial in Rutland in May 2024.
Troupe helped plan the robbery in Swanton four years ago and reportedly had told the two gunmen he recruited for the case that nobody was supposed to be injured, prosecutors have said. The armed robbery for the drugs went sideways.
Elijah Oliver, 22, of Haverhill, Mass. died from two gunshots inside the residence at 45 First St. in Swanton about 4:35 a.m. Feb. 2, 2022, Vermont State Police said.
Nobody has been charged in Vermont Superior Court with the killing of Oliver, who was identified as a member of the Gangsta Disciples gang by his hometown newspaper.
His grandmother said in court on Friday that Oliver was out of the gang and turning his life around. Oliver, who did rap music, was scheduled to sign a contract with a record company and was headed to Georgia, she said. Marlene Consoli said Oliver’s death was devastating to his mother and she took her own life just before Thanksgiving last year.
Consoli told Vermont News First after the hearing that her daughter, who was 47, suffered from “heartbroken syndrome” — an extreme stress related medical condition.
“She could not pull herself together” from the loss of her son, Consoli said. She said others in the tight-knit family also have struggled.
Consoli thought her grandson was in Vermont in 2022 to make a video and later learned he was selling drugs. The record deal was designed to turn him around.
“We knew he was going places,” she said. “He was gifted.”
Consoli also was critical of Troupe in court for failing to come clean about the robbery and to offer a sincere apology for the homicide.
Troupe, who has sons ages 19 and 15, did offer a long rambling statement, but said little about his four felony convictions.
During the sentencing it was clear that Troupe, who prosecutors say drove at least one robber to the scene, has yet to publicly provide the name of the second shooter involved in the homicide.
The court was unable to give Troupe credit under the sentencing guidelines for any acceptance of responsibility.
Troupe had denied all four felony counts, including a charge of conspiring with one of his former girlfriends, Jayme Sartelle, 42, of Colchester and Misti-Lyn Morin, 44, and her housemate, Eric Raymond, 33, of Swanton to distribute crack cocaine between July 2021 and at least Feb. 2, 2022 – the day of the fatal shooting.
The jury also convicted Troupe for aiding and abetting the use of a firearm that was discharged during a drug trafficking offense, conspiracy to commit a robbery, and possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute.
The conspiracy to distribute conviction carried a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence and the discharged gun count required a mandatory 10-year sentence consecutive to all other sentences.
Troupe provided a gun to Raymond and recruited the second unidentified person for the robbery, officials said. Jesse Sweet, then 28, of Swanton, another local drug dealer who helped Raymond and Morin sell drugs, initially was going to do the robbery, but he got cold feet, state police said.
Instead Sweet aided the plan by leaving the door at 45 First Street unlocked and unplugging the surveillance cameras, police said.
The two robbers went upstairs, they each opened fire with their handguns, and ran back to Troupe in the waiting car, Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Turner has said.
Oliver was shot by two different caliber handguns, investigators have said.
Troupe dropped Raymond on the roadside in Swanton and then returned to his Colchester residence, Turner said. Raymond is believed to have been picked up by Sweet.
Troupe contacted Morin to make sure Raymond made it home and then instructed Sartelle to cancel the cell phone he had been using to coordinate the drug conspiracy and robbery plot, Turner said.
At least nine people were in the single-family residence of Crystal Ahl and Elvin Sweet at the time of the fatal shooting, state police said. Ahl, 44, was among the witnesses to take the stand during the Troupe trial.
Some fled before Swanton Police and U.S. Border Patrol could arrive.
Troupe fled Vermont for two months after the shooting. He later returned to resume his drug trafficking to reap the benefit of Oliver’s death by regaining customers, state police said.
The Vermont Drug Task Force busted Troupe in September 2022 on a charge of possession with intent to distribute nearly a half-pound of crack cocaine. The drugs were found in his vehicle when he got off a Lake Champlain ferry in Grand Isle as he returned to Vermont from a trip to get more drugs to sell, court records show.
Troupe was a primary source of supply for crack cocaine being sold at a River Street residence in Swanton, former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael P. Drescher had said in court records.
The federal sentencing guidelines had determined a life in prison penalty was the appropriate sentence for Troupe, but the lawyers on both side acknowledged that was out of line with other federal drug-related death cases in Vermont. Both sides asked the judge to divert downward from the guidelines.
Turner said 24 years was an appropriate sentence. Turner prosecuted the case with Drescher, who recently resigned to accept Governor Phil Scott’s appointment to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Turner, speaking after Troupe, painted a different picture then the defendant about himself. Turner also noted in his sentencing memo that Troupe had shown no remorse or acceptance of responsibility.
Turner maintains Troupe is known to be untruthful and a dangerous person and had made threats to at least two witnesses in the case that something could happen to them if they testified at the trial.
Turner also wrote that Troupe had received more than 15 disciplinary reports while in prison in the current case. He said at least four involved assaults on other inmates and additional reports were for interfering with correctional officers, including in one case that he warned the guard he was going to die.
In one of the prison assaults Troupe thought an inmate was a government informant and the use of force was an effort to obstruct justice, Turner said.
Turner said the 15-year mandatory minimum was too short a sentence for the crimes committed. He noted Eric Raymond, who accepted responsibility for his conduct, had received 12 years.
Turner said Troupe knows the second shooter, but so far has not wanted to help himself by revealing his identity.
Defense lawyer Kevin Henry, who took over after the trial from attorney Chandler Matson, had suggested a 15-year prison term – the mandatory minimum.
He said Troupe has maintained his innocence and it should not be held against him for silence about the shooting.
Troupe, who also uses the street name “Juice” never took the witness stand to defend himself. Matson did not call any witnesses.
Senior Federal Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford told Troupe once he is discharged from federal prison, he will be under supervised release for four years by the U.S. Probation Office.
He also was given a tentative order to make $7,837 in restitution to the Vermont Center for Crime Victims. Another hearing will be held if the final accounting is different, Crawford said.
Henry asked that Troupe, who is originally from the Bronx, serve his time close to New York City.
Troupe had at least nine relatives attend the sentencing.
During the trial the government presented 22 witnesses. They included the lead investigator then-State Police Detective Sgt. Isaac Merriam (now lieutenant), three members of the Vermont Drug Task Force and several people involved in illegal drug trafficking.
The final witness was Dr. Elizabeth Bundock, Vermont’s chief medical examiner, who conducted the autopsy on Oliver.
The mothers of both Oliver and Troupe were in the courtroom for the verdict in Rutland.
First Assistant U. S. Attorney Jonathan A. Ophardt commended the joint investigation by state and Swanton Police, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.