A West Rutland man once interviewed by the Wall Street Journal for his substance abuse recovery efforts has been cited for criminal threatening after police say he and another West Rutland man smashed a West Rutland home window and made threatening statements. 

Police say they were notified that two men were attempting to break into a home on Main Street at around 5:45 p.m. The men had fled the scene when they arrived, however, a window at the residence was smashed.

Following an investigation, police allege that Todd Popovich, 41, of West Rutland, and Joshua Whittemore, 39, also of West Rutland, had broken the window and threatened harm to the residents.

Police say Whittemore was issued a citation to appear on February 13 for the charge of unlawful mischief and criminal threatening. Popovich was issued a citation to appear on February 13, for the charge of criminal threatening.

In a Dec. 23, 2016 Wall Street Journal article, Popovich was profiled as a longtime heroin user and former star basketball player benefiting from what the WSJ headline called ‘Vermont’s Radical Experiment to Break the Addiction Cycle’ – “a program that steers low-level lawbreakers with drug addictions into treatment and other services, bypassing incarceration and using the threat of prosecution as leverage.”