Alleged dealer charged after authorities seize meth packages in Oceanside

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An attorney adviser for the Internal Revenue Service was arrested and charged with distributing 500 grams or more of methamphetamine, according to court documents unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Jack Vitayanon, 41, of Washington, D.C., conspired with others in Arizona and on Long Island to distribute the drug for several years. Agents in the Department of Homeland Security seized a Federal Express package from a private residence in Oceanside on Dec. 2, 2016, which contained about 460 grams of methamphetamine.

The intended recipient admitted that he or she was expecting the package from an Arizona source, and had been purchasing similar quantities of meth from the supply source for many months, the complaint says, which put him or her in contact with Vitayanon. The Oceanside resident had paid the source $8,600 for the package.

About two weeks later, the recipient, in cooperation with law enforcement, conducted a video chat with Vitayanon, who appeared to be smoking meth through a glass pipe in his Washington, D.C. apartment. During the conversation, he agreed to send an ounce of the drug to the person’s Oceanside home. In text messages, he requested $1,650 for the shipment.

Authorities seized that package upon arrival in Oceanside, which held an ounce of a substance containing methamphetamine.

“As alleged, the defendant – a federal attorney working for the IRS’s Office of Professional Responsibility – broke bad and supplemented his income by selling distribution quantities of methamphetamine,” U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said in a statement. “The defendant will now be held to account for his alleged criminal conduct.”

A search of the defendant’s apartment executed pursuant to a court-authorized search warrant led to the seizure of additional quantities of suspected methamphetamine, drug paraphernalia, packaging materials and drug ledgers.

Angel Melendez, Homeland Security Investigations special agent-in-charge stated, “Selling methamphetamine is a serious crime which is made more egregious when it is committed by a U.S. government attorney assigned to the Office of Professional Responsibility of the IRS. People that sell this highly addictive and destructive drug must be brought to justice before more lives are lost to this epidemic.”

Nassau County police did not immediately comment on the incident.