BURLINGTON — A 57-year-old Bethel man has been sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison and three years of supervised release stemming from a police raid at his family home, which he used for selling drugs and pug dogs.
Richard Boles pleaded guilty in Windsor Superior Court to state felony and misdemeanor charges of conspiracy fentanyl trafficking and cruelty to animals, plus one federal count of maintaining a drug-involved premises.
In January 2025, a Vermont Drug Taskforce investigation in and around Bethel led police to Boles’ residence on Gage Road.
“Boles used the residence — his mother’s home that he occupied while she was in an assisted living facility — to house individuals selling controlled substances in Vermont as well as raising dogs for sale,” court records state.
After obtaining a warrant, police in tactical gear and gas masks searched the residence and discovered over $20,000, more than a kilogram of cocaine, over five grams of fentanyl, 13 firearms and several types of ammunition.
Detectives also found eight adult pug dogs throughout the home, along with a children’s pool containing six pug puppies.
“The dogs all had access to the cocaine, which was on the ground next to the toilet, as well as the additional trash scattered about the floor of the residence,” the affidavit in the Windsor docket states.
Nine people, described in court records as suspected dealers who had been reported selling drugs from Boles’ residence, were arrested in the raid.
In his post-arrest interview, Boles admitted his drug use, firearms possession and using the residence to facilitate drug distribution.
“The silver lining of hitting rock bottom is that (Boles) is motivated to leave the Upper Valley and his bad influences behind,” his attorney in the federal case, Devin McLaughlin of Langrock, Sperry and Wool in Middlebury, Vt., states in a sentencing memorandum filed a year after his arrest.
Since his arrest, Boles has been in state custody.
“He is 57 years old, and if he does not successfully address his addiction. he will be dead soon,” McLaughlin added.
Seeking a sentence of 12 months or less, McLaughlin wrote that Boles’ hope is to ultimately find sober housing in the Burlington area with assistance and oversight of U.S. Probation.
Court records show Boles has a history of driving under the influence and being encountered in vehicles with drugs.
Jonathan Ophardt, first assistant United States attorney, urged the court to consider the seriousness of Boles’ crime.
“He turned his corner of Bethel, Vt., from a quiet area to a busy drug marketplace,” Ophardt states in the government’s sentencing memorandum, arguing for a sentence of between 36 and 48 months in federal prison.
Voicemails left for McLaughlin and the Attorney General’s Office were not immediately returned on Thursday.
In Windsor Superior Court in June, Boles received a state sentence of 18 to 24 months for conspiracy fentanyl trafficking and cruelty to animals.
On July 10 in Burlington’s federal court, U.S. District Chief Judge Christina Reiss sentenced Boles to a 22-month in prison, to be served simultaneously with his state sentence, plus three years of supervised release for the one federal count of maintaining a drug-involved premises.
