Thedford Browning Faces up to 25 Years to Life in Prison
Seventeenth Major Trafficking case brought by the District Attorney’s Office ends in Conviction after Trial on all Counts
Defendant convicted of possessing over 3 Kilograms of Cocaine and 2 illegal firearms.
Orange County District Attorney David M. Hoovler announced that Thedford Browning, age 53, of Middletown, was convicted after a jury trial in the Orange County Court of Operating as a Major Trafficker, Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the First Degree, three counts of Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree, and two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree. Browning faces up to twenty-five years to life (25 – Life) in prison when he is sentenced on October 24, 2025. Browning remains remanded in the Orange County Jail without bail following the jury’s verdict. Browning is the seventeenth defendant charged with Operating as Major Trafficker since District Attorney Hoovler took office in 2014.
Evidence at the trial proved that as of July 25, 2024, Browning, as a “profiteer,” knowingly and unlawfully possessed, on multiple occasions, within six months or less, cocaine, with intent to sell it, and the cocaine had a total value seventy-five thousand dollars. On July 25, 2024, the City of Middletown Police Department, aided by the Orange County Drug Taskforce, executed a search warrant at a storage unit Browning used at the CubeSmart storage facility on Dolson Avenue, in the City of Middletown. Police officers recovered over three kilograms of cocaine, a defaced Tech Nine assault weapon, over forty-thousand ($40,000) dollars in cash, digital scales, money counters and other drug paraphernalia. City of Middletown Police Officers also executed a search warrant at the defendant’s James Street residence in Middletown and recovered additional cocaine, a loaded, and defaced .38 caliber revolver, drug packaging materials and digital scales commonly used to weigh drugs being packaged for sale. The street value of all; the recovered cocaine was in excess of $200,000. Evidence at the trial also included that Browning had sold, or arranged for others to sell, cocaine to agents working for the City of Middletown Police Department on fifteen (15) separate occasions.
District Attorney Hoovler thanked the City of Middletown Police Department for their investigation which led to the arrest of Browning.
“This defendant was a ‘Major Narcotics Trafficker’ in every sense of the word, and my office will be recommending that he be sentenced to twenty-five years to life (25 – Life) in prison,” said District Attorney David M. Hoovler. “Invariably where there are large amounts of narcotics there are illegal weapons, which dealers use to protect their lethal products and their illegal profits. Major Traffickers make hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more, profiting from vulnerable people’s addictions. Far too many lives in Orange County have been lost or destroyed by drug addiction, and the violence which inevitably follows it. My office is dedicated to working with our law enforcement partners to go after those at the top of the controlled substance supply chain. I am grateful for the diligence and professionalism of the City of Middletown Police Department, and the other law enforcement agencies that aided them in this investigation.”
District Attorney Hoovler highly commended Senior Assistant District Attorney Alexis Gregory who prosecuted the case.
This criminal charge is merely an allegation that a defendant has committed a violation of the criminal law, and it is not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial, during which it will be the State of New York’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
