Alexandr Dyatchin, a 39-year-old Serbian national who was arrested last August for his involvement in a drug trafficking operation between Brooklyn and East Hampton, was sentenced last week to five years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision, by Supreme Court Justice John Collins in Riverhead.
Mr. Dyatchin and his co-defendant, Michael Khodorkovskiy of Brooklyn, 45, were the subjects of a years-long investigation that began in July 2023. It was led by Christopher Cooke of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s East End Drug Task Force and Det. Arthur Scalzo of the East Hampton Town Police Department.
Over the course of the investigation, police said, Mr. Dyatchin repeatedly sold cocaine and MDMA to an undercover officer at various locations across the East End, including Stop and Shop in East Hampton, Rosie’s restaurant in Amagansett, and the Montauk Yacht Club.
He was apprehended on Aug. 2, 2024, at a house he’d been renting on Driftwood Lane in Springs, by members of the Drug Task Force, who executed a search warrant on the property that recovered some 589 grams of cocaine, divided among over 1,000 individual packages; 269 grams of MDMA; and $19,046 in cash. They also found more than 50 envelopes of cocaine in a hidden compartment in Mr. Dyatchin’s black Mercedes.
Mr. Khodorkovskiy was arrested the same day, and both men were arraigned soon after before Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro, who set bail for each at $2 million cash or $5 million bond. Neither was able to post bail, and both have since been held in county jail.
On May 29, Justice Collins sentenced Mr. Khodorkovskiy to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision, after a plea agreement in which he admitted to criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree, a class A-II felony. He was also required to forfeit a total of $572,353 that had been seized from him in the form of bank accounts, U.S. currency, and other personal property linked to the crime.
“Our East End is not a dumping ground for dangerous narcotics from New York City,” District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in a release at the time. “This guilty plea demonstrates our commitment to disrupting the flow of dangerous narcotics anywhere into Suffolk County.”
Mr. Dyatchin, who was represented by the attorney Kenneth Russo, accepted a plea bargain with the prosecution later that week, and was sentenced to five years in prison on the same charges, with five more of post-release supervision.
Justice Collins handed down that sentence on Aug. 18, with the defendant receiving credit for the year in custody. Mr. Dyatchin was living in Florida on an expired visa at the time of his arrest, and could be deported upon his release from prison.
