New Bedford heroin trafficker sentenced

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NEW BEDFORD, MASS. (WLNE) – Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III announced that a New Bedford heroin trafficker is being sentenced to serve up to four-and-a-half years in state prison.

Joshua Perry, 26, pleaded guilty in Fall River Superior Court, last week, to an indictment charging him with trafficking in excess of 18 grams of heroin.

Back on September 18, 2017, detectives from the New Bedford Police Department executed a search warrant on 16 Roosevelt Street, Apartment 3.

For officials, the target of the warrant was the defendant, who was observed by police leaving his apartment and entering his vehicle. 

He was immediately stopped by the police and escorted back to his apartment. 

During the search, the police discovered 5.1 grams of heroin/fentanyl in his sock in two separate bags.

Officials also made observations of a planter inside the apartment which matched a second planter located outside of the apartment door. 

Upon the police’s search of the second planter, it was discovered an additional 71.7 grams of heroin/fentanyl. 

Each set of narcotics had been tested and found to be identical in the heroin/fentanyl mix and cut with the same cutting agent. 

They also recovered packaging materials, digital scales and other indicia of narcotics distribution in the apartment. 

While the defendant was out on bail on the drug trafficking case, he was re-arrested in October of 2018 in connection to an October 28, 2018 shooting involving two injured victims on County Street, police state.

In that case, the defendant still faces indictments charging him with five counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of unlawful possession of a large-capacity firearm and one count of attempted assault and battery by means of a firearm.  

Perry is set to appear in the shooting case on November 25 for a pretrial conference.

“The defendant is profiting from selling a lethal mix of heroin and fentanyl. This defendant clearly is a danger to the community,” District Attorney Quinn said.

©WLNE-TV/ABC6 2019