Fla. Man Sentenced for Oxy Distribution, ID Theft, in Danvers

A Miami man who operated throughout South Florida was sentenced on Jan. 9, 2015, for his role in an oxycodone distribution conspiracy involving thousands of oxycodone pills and stolen identities of Puerto Rican residents.

Jose Perez, 40, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns to 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In April 2014, Perez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute oxycodone, distribution of oxycodone, and identity theft, said the U.S. DA’s office.

In Feb., 2011, federal investigators found that the oxycodone distribution organization by Perez and several co-conspirators in the Boston area sold large quantities of the pills to those conspirators, who distributed them in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Operating with the two others, defendants Alexander “Bones” Sanchez and Angela Acosta, Perez moved oxycodone to buyers in Westborough, Saugus and Danvers, according to court records, between Sept., 2011, and January, 2013.

Perez also, starting in Nov. 2011, initiated an ID theft and tax refund scheme where he sold hundreds of Social Security numbers, names and dates of birth of Puerto Rican residents to an undercover federal agent. The identities, said the DA, were intended to be used to fraudulently obtain tax refunds.

Over the last several years, increasing numbers of drug dealers have diversified their operations to include lucrative identity theft and tax fraud schemes, said the U.S. DA’s office.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Michael J. Ferguson, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Boston Field Division; and William P. Offord, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston, made the announcement. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christophe F. Bator of Ortiz’s Drug Task Force Unit.