Arrest of Career Drug Dealer In Walton

The Delaware County Sheriff's Office has released the following press release on a drug bust that took place on June 3rd:

"On Friday afternoon Delaware County Sheriff Tom Mills announced the arrest of a recently paroled Village of Walton career drug dealer on new drug trafficking charges.  On Thursday afternoon, members of the Delaware County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Division arrested 33 year old Gerard F. H. “Jerry” Johnson, of East Street, Walton, on a Sealed Indictment Warrant issued earlier that day.

As part of their on-going and unrelenting commitment to identify and prosecute heroin traffickers, especially those associated with opiate overdoses, members of the Sheriff’s Criminal Investigation Division initiated an investigation into the source of heroin associated with a non-fatal overdose incident in the Village of Walton earlier this year.

In part, that investigation led to evidence relating to the sales of heroin in the Village of Walton by Gerard “Jerry” Johnson during May of this year being presented to a Delaware County Grand Jury on Thursday morning.  That Grand Jury subsequently charged Johnson with two (2) counts of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree, a class B felony.  At the time of those heroin sales, Johnson was being supervised by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s Division of Parole.

Johnson was arraigned on the new charges in Delaware County Court on Friday afternoon before the Acting County Court Judge Gary A. Rosa and was ordered held in lieu of $50,000 cash or $100,000 bail bond pending further court proceedings.

If convicted of each of these charges, Johnson faces the potential of being sentenced to consecutive, definite sentences of up to 12 years of incarceration in State Prison on each of these new charges.

Johnson was previously arrested by Delaware County Sheriff's Office Investigators in June, 2013, on a Sealed Indictment Warrant charging him with three class B felony offenses of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree.  Johnson was subsequently convicted, in Delaware County Court, of the felony offense of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Fifth Degree and Endangering the Welfare of a Child and was sentenced to five years of probation and was fined twenty five hundred ($2500.00) dollars.

In July, 2014, while still serving his probation sentence, Johnson was again arrested by Delaware County Sheriff's Office Investigators on a second Sealed Indictment Warrant charging him with the class B felony offense of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree and was later charged with violating the terms of his probation imposed as a result of his 2013 conviction for Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance.  In April, 2015, Johnson was again convicted, in Delaware County Court, of the felony offense of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Fifth Degree and was subsequently sentenced to one and a half (1½) years of imprisonment associated with the 2014 charge and was also re-sentenced to a 90 day term of incarceration relating to his 2013 conviction for which he had earlier been sentenced to five years of probation.  In early December, 2015, Johnson was subsequently released from the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Moriah Shock Incarceration Facility after serving only seven months of his 2014 one and a half year sentence of imprisonment subject to supervision by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (Parole).

On Friday, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision filed a Warrant of Arrest to Re-take a Paroled or Conditionally Released Prisoner with the Delaware County Correctional Facility based upon this new arrest and other recent violations of the terms and conditions of Johnson’s parole.

Undersheriff Craig DuMond remarked “This career drug dealer needs to go away…probation, parole, as well as (7) months of shock incarceration hasn’t fazed him.  He repeatedly continues to victimize our communities and our citizens.  He deserves every day of the 24 years he is facing.  We pledge to work closely with our District Attorney’s Office to ensure his swift and assertive conviction and much deserved prison sentence”.