GRANITEVILLE — Two men from Vermont were arrested after prosecutors said they bought nearly 200 pills on Staten Island.
Austin Roque, 22, and Tyler Wetmore, 27, were seen by police holding a Ziploc bag filled with pills while waiting at a red light at Willow Road East and Watchogue Road on Saturday at about 8:15 p.m., prosecutors said.
When police pulled them over, they smelled marijuana and found three ziploc bags inside Wetmore's pocket that contained 164 oxycodone pills, 56 whole and five partial alprazolam pills and a pipe filled with un-smoked pot, prosecutors said.
"We packed it but we didn't get a chance to smoke it yet," Wetmore told police, according to court papers.
While police tried to arrest Wetmore, he smacked the pills out of their hand, tried to crush them into the ground and ran away, prosecutors said. He was eventually arrested after officers used mace on him, prosecutors said.
He told police that they took the nearly six hour drive from Vermont to pick up the pills at a dealer's house.
"I just came from picking up those pills from the dealer's house around the corner," Wetmore told police, according to court papers. "I took out a loan from the bank to buy these pills."
Wetmore was charged with resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration. Both Wetmore and Roque were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance at their arraignment, according to the Staten Island District Attorney's office.
Roque's bail was set at $3,000 and he's due back in court on Friday, according to online court records.
Information for Wetmore's bail or laywer was not immediatley available. Roque's lawyer could not be reached for comment.
