AG James Announces Drug Trafficking Takedown

By Miranda Reale

KINGSTON – New York Attorney General Letitia James and leaders of local law enforcement in Ulster and Dutchess Counties announced the takedown of a criminal operation last Wednesday. “We’re here to announce the takedown of a drug trafficking ring,” Attorney General James said. A drug ring disguising heroin and methamphetamine pressed into pill form to resemble prescription painkillers and anti anxiety medication led to the arrest of twelve individuals directly involved with the distribution network. The first indictments charged the defendants with 275 counts for their roles in two drug trafficking operations. Both of which Christopher Pulichene, 39, of New Paltz, was at the center.

The investigation that began in June 2021 has resulted in the seizure of 11 kilograms of cocaine with a street value amounting to $1.2 million dollars– one of Ulster County’s largest busts. Additionally, more than 15,000 methamphetamine pills, artificial Xanax pills, upwards of 750 heroin pills were also seized. But drugs were not the sole facet of illegal activity, as 39 firearms were recovered and $120,000 in cash. Among the array of firearms were four assault weapons with hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

Attorney General James explained that Pulichene purchased heroin pills from Alton Countryman, 35, who was supported by his wife, Thekla Countryman, 35, and Joshua Guldy, 21, all three residents of Kingston. He stored the pills in his house in New Paltz, and at three additional stash houses in New Paltz, Kingston, and at his office in Wappingers Falls. Marketed on the street as oxycontin and adderall, “Alton Countryman made the heroin pills himself at his home in Kingston,” Attorney General James said.

Countryman took loose heroin, pressed it into pills, then designed it to look exactly like pharmaceutical oxycodone. With the same shape, color, and even the same imprints as real pharmaceutical pills, these manufactured drugs posed dangerously close to the real thing; people had no idea they were actually consuming heroin. “What makes this illegal pill operation that much more dangerous and disturbing is the fact that the people who were buying these drugs — they did not know they…were ingesting heroin and methamphetamine,” she said. There have not been any overdoses attributed to the drug ring, she added.

Pulichene also purchased large amounts of cocaine and artificial Xanax pills from a Gulf Coast source he then sold to Thomas Colon, 60, of Saugerties, Julia Eaton, 34, of Gansevoort, and Zachary Vanvlack, 34, of Wappinger Falls, for resale to others.

The joint investigation of the Attorney General’s organized crime task force was led by the Ulster Regional Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team (URGENT), and included the Dutchess County Drug Task Force, New York State Police Special Investigations Unit, and the Homeland Security Investigations – Hudson Valley Office.