Judge upholds prison sentence for former restaurant owner Kevin Perry

WORCESTER — Kevin Perry Jr., the man sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2018 for laundering a major fentanyl pill operation through two city restaurants, asked a federal judge on Monday to reduce his prison sentence by nearly four years.

Instead, Judge Margaret R. Guzman, who took over as the sitting federal judge in Worcester in August, indicated she may have given him more time in prison than her predecessor.

“He left a trail of victims,” Guzman, ruling from the court, said Monday after arguments from Perry’s attorney and the government. “If I had been the judge, he might have had a much greater number of months.”

Guzman’s ruling quickly ended a bid by Perry to take advantage of new federal guidelines that would have reduced his sentencing recommendation — though not necessarily the sentence he received — at the time it was imposed.

Perry was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to a slew of charges related to allegations that he used money he made from selling fentanyl pills disguised as oxycodone to buy nine city properties, including two restaurants.

The crimes occurred while Perry was on supervised release after serving an eight-year federal prison sentence for making and selling ecstasy pills. The case led to charges against Perry’s wife and former restaurant employees after prosecutors said hundreds of thousands from Perry’s drug operation were stashed in multiple places, including a storage vault in Northborough and a church in Worcester.

On Monday, Perry’s attorney argued in court that recent retroactive changes to the way sentencing guidelines are calculated would have reduced Perry’s proposed sentence by 17 months in 2018. The attorney, Mark W. Shea, asked Guzman not only to shave that time off his sentence, but also to shave 47 months off his prison sentence.

That would mean Perry would soon be eligible for release; Shea wrote in the court filings that Perry, who he said has behaved well in prison, is currently on track to be released in March 2028.

Shea said Perry has completed 40 classes behind bars and takes seriously his obligation to try to recover from deep-seated childhood trauma.

Shea told Guzman that at the age of six, Perry saw his uncle rape a close, minor relative. He said Perry told his parents and acted as a witness, earning the uncle a criminal conviction and causing permanent mental scars.

Perry ended up in the state’s care, Shea said, and spent time in several treatment centers for mental health issues, including thoughts of self-harm.

Shea argued that Perry’s personal trauma, combined with his good behavior in prison and sentencing guidelines revisions, supported his request. He said Perry turned over a “significant amount of property” through his plea deal and was trying to help the government recover hundreds of thousands in drug proceeds that disappeared after his arrest.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg A. Friedholm strongly encouraged Guzman to deny Perry’s request.

Friedholm said the “property” Shea referred to consisted of 14,000 fentanyl pills that he was preparing to distribute to the community during the throes of the opioid crisis.

Friedholm — who said in 2018 that Perry failed a polygraph test regarding his assets — said Monday that although Perry had turned over the location of his money, much of it “went out the back door to his wife and his father-in-law.” ”

“He was the one who told his wife where that money was,” Friedholm said, right around the time he was reportedly dealing “in good faith” with the government.

Friedholm said the government agreed in 2018 not to pursue charges that could have landed Perry in prison for a minimum of 20 years.

The reality, Friedholm said, is that Perry sold fentanyl pills to the public while under court supervision for selling drugs, making him the “poster child” for imposing mandatory minimums on repeat drug offenders.

He argued that the changes to the sentencing guidelines — which are not binding on judges when handing down sentences — were not intended to help inmates with a proven history of recidivism, like Perry.

After hearing from both sides, Guzman said that while she appreciates the role that childhood trauma can play, Perry’s record of recidivism is what earned him his sentence.

“There is no less respect for the law that you can show,” she said of his 2018 conviction, noting that it came “in the eye of the storm of the drug crisis.”

Guzman said Perry not only committed the same crime, but “took it one step further” in the trial, which involved family members and business associates, some of whom were charged.

“He has left a trail of victims,” she said, adding that given his history, prison is the most effective way to ensure he does not reoffend.

Guzman said the 14-year prison sentence imposed by her predecessor, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman, was undoubtedly carefully considered and that she would not interfere with it.

“(Perry) might have had a longer sentence if I had been the judge,” she said, adding that she strongly suspected that Hillman’s sentence was “one that he (Hillman) viewed as extremely lenient in this case .”

Monday’s hearing was not Perry’s first failed attempt to secure parole, as he was also denied a bid for release during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guzman said Monday that Perry’s case is one of “a number” of cases in which inmates have applied for leniency under the revised guidelines.

“This will not be our last hearing (on this issue),” she said.

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