Man returns to Vermont to face drug charges

A former Springfield area resident has been transferred from a prison in New Hampshire to a jail in Vermont to answer to local drug charges that are pending against him.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140923/NEWS02/709239967

Published September 23, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Man returns to Vermont to face drug charges By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A former Springfield area resident has been transferred from a prison in New Hampshire to a jail in Vermont to answer to local drug charges that are pending against him. Ronald “Hercules” Reddic, 55, stands accused of heroin trafficking and cocaine possession around Springfield, charges to which he pleaded innocent in February 2013. At that time, Reddic and his wife posted bail. They were arrested a month later for selling drugs in New Hampshire. Reddic’s wife, Gina Roperti, 50, of Andover, is serving concurrent sentences for drug dealing in Vermont and New Hampshire. Reddic was sentenced last year in two separate New Hampshire cases, one involving the sale of heroin and the other involving sales of heroin and crack cocaine. New Hampshire sentenced Reddic to four to 10 years to serve in prison on one case and then added a suspended 3½-to-7-year sentence in the other but made it consecutive, which means that Reddic could serve up to 17 years in total if he were ever to violate any eventual probation or furlough conditions. In the meantime, Vermont authorities filed a request through the federal Interstate Agreement on Detainers asking for Reddic to be extracted from the New Hampshire State Prison and transferred to the jail in Springfield so his Vermont cases could continue forward. That has now taken place and Reddic appeared earlier this month in a courtroom in White River Junction to get his cases, which carry maximum potential penalties of up to 31 years worth of additional jail time, back on track for eventual trial or, potentially, a plea agreement. Roperti went through a similar procedure in March of this year, although she was allowed to address the court using a speakerphone from New Hampshire rather than actually appear in person. She received a 12-to-18-month Vermont sentence for selling crack cocaine in Springfield on three occasions early last year. At Roperti’s sentencing, Vermont Assistant Attorney General Paul Barkus told the court investigators who guided the confidential informants making the series of crack cocaine buys from Roperti — and allegedly from her husband — were especially galled by tape recordings in which Roperti could be heard bragging that she’d dealt drugs three decades ago, and after a wave of police arrests, she and Reddic were left “cleaning it up” on the local narcotics market because their rival dealers “are dead, in jail or broke.”