CANTON – A Harrisville woman was sentenced to 11 years in state prison today for a conviction related to the Operation Gravy Train crackdown last year.

A press release from State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman recently announced the guilty plea and sentencing of Tiffany Richway of Harrisville, for conspiring in a large-scale narcotics trafficking ring operating in and around St. Lawrence County.

On Thursday, March 8, St. Lawrence County Court Judge Jerome J. Richards sentenced Richway to 11 years in state prison, plus 5 years post-release supervision. The sentencing followed Richway’s guilty plea to Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the First Degree, an A-I felony. Richway's plea marks the 91st guilty plea secured by the Attorney General in Operation Gravy Train.

The Attorney General noted that the evidence in this case established that Richway sold in excess of $75,000 worth of cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl in the Village of Gouverneur in St. Lawrence County and the Town of Pamelia in Jefferson County. During the course of the investigation, investigators seized hundreds of bags of these narcotics from Richway.

On Dec. 29, 2016, authorities seized 172 bags of cocaine and 1,699 bags containing both heroin and fentanyl from the Royal Inn in Pamelia where Richway was, at the time, alleged to have been storing and selling narcotics. On Jan. 7, 2017, authorities seized 171 bags of cocaine and 395 bags containing both heroin and fentanyl as Richway vacated a home where she was allegedly selling narcotics in the Village of Gouverneur in St. Lawrence County.

Operation Gravy Train was an investigation spearheaded by the Attorney General’s Organized Crime Task Force as part of his Suburban and Upstate Response to the Growing Epidemic (“S.U.R.G.E.”) Initiative – a crackdown on New York’s widening heroin, opioid, and narcotics distribution networks.

“Our SURGE Initiative is a critical piece of our multipronged approach to tackling the opioid epidemic facing communities in St. Lawrence County and across New York,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “With the assistance of nearly two dozen law enforcement agencies that partnered with my office on Operation Gravy Train, we’ve taken 106 violent drug dealers off our streets. We’ll continue to work to stop the supply of drugs into our communities and drive violent gangs and traffickers out of business.”

In the past ten months, Attorney General Schneiderman’s SURGE initiative has resulted in the 288 alleged traffickers and dealers taken off the streets across New York, through Operation Bricktown, Operation Un-Wise, Operation Gravy Train, Operation Bloodsport, Operation Pipeline, Operation Wrecking Ball, Operation Blue Death, and Operation Yellow Brick Road.

The investigation was conducted by St. Lawrence County Detective Arthur Shattuck and OCTF Special Investigator Paul Pendergast, under the supervision of Supervising Investigator Thomas M. Wolf and Eugene Black.

The case is being prosecuted by OCTF Assistant Deputy Attorney General and Senior Investigative Counsel James J. Mindell, under the supervision of OCTF Deputy Attorney General Peri Alyse Kadanoff, Upstate OCTF Deputy Chief Maria Moran, and Executive Deputy Attorney General for Criminal Prosecutions Margaret Garnett.

The charges against the remaining defendants are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.