ORLANDO — A seven-time convicted felon who ran a cocaine trafficking operation out of a Sanford stash house — storing 18 kilogram bricks of cocaine and a machinegun among broken-down cars in the backyard — has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, one of three Central Florida defendants sentenced this week on charges ranging from drug trafficking to public corruption to fraud.
U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron sentenced Terrence Denard Perkins, 46, of Sanford after a federal jury found him guilty on Nov. 20, 2025, of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced the sentence along with two other cases out of the Middle District of Florida.
The Perkins case exposed a years-long cocaine distribution network with cartel-linked suppliers operating in a residential Sanford neighborhood. Agents with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office’s City/County Investigative Bureau were conducting a narcotics investigation when they learned of a planned narcotics robbery at Perkins’s stash house, occupied by his elderly stepfather. A same-day search warrant turned up an electronic money counter, revolvers, and a loaded AR-15 semiautomatic rifle concealed behind a sofa cushion.
In a backyard carport, agents found bags of cocaine alongside a cocaine cutting, packaging, and distribution station. On the hood of Perkins’s vehicle sat another loaded AR-15 and a MAC-10 handgun wrapped in a T-shirt. Hidden inside one broken-down car, agents recovered more AR-15s, handguns, an AK-47 rifle, a machinegun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Inside a second broken-down car — positioned just outside the elderly stepfather’s bedroom window — agents located Perkins’s cocaine inventory: 18 sealed and stamped kilogram bricks of cocaine.
Federal and state investigators subsequently uncovered witnesses, financial records, DNA evidence, videos from Perkins’s stash house surveillance system, and his own social media posts showing he had been trafficking and distributing kilogram quantities of cocaine in Sanford for years. Perkins’s prior convictions include conspiracy to traffic cocaine, possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, and aggravated fleeing and eluding. The court ordered him to forfeit hundreds of rounds of ammunition and more than a dozen firearms, including AR-style rifles, handguns, and the machinegun. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office CCIB, with assistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration, and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Richard Varadan and Michael P. Felicetta.
In a separate case announced the same day out of Ocala, a federal correctional officer who smuggled drugs into a Sumter County prison in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in bribes was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison. Karen Torres, 50, of St. Cloud, worked at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County, where she introduced contraband — marijuana, cigarettes, and K2 — between May 2022 and March 3, 2025, collecting $43,550 in bribes from inmates.
United States District Judge Thomas P. Barber imposed the sentence and ordered Torres to forfeit $43,550 to the United States. Torres pleaded guilty on Feb. 4, 2026. The case was investigated by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and the Drug Enforcement Administration and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Hannah Nowalk Watson.
The third case involved a Kissimmee man already convicted of COVID relief fraud who devised a second scheme to avoid paying his criminal forfeiture. Senior United States District Judge John Antoon II sentenced Levelle Joseph Harris, 40, to 21 months in federal prison for wire fraud. Harris pleaded guilty on July 30, 2025.
According to court records, Harris originally obtained $1,283,029.81 in COVID relief funds through fraud in 2020 and used some of the money to purchase a residential property. After he was convicted on 14 counts of wire fraud and the United States sought forfeiture of the property, Harris sold it and turned over the proceeds — but the sale itself was unlawful. Between February 2022 and January 2023, Harris devised a separate mortgage fraud scheme, obtaining a mortgage through false representations and using the proceeds to purchase the property and pay his forfeiture. He fraudulently obtained $640,911.85 through the scheme. Judge Antoon ordered Harris to forfeit that amount to the United States. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Hannah Nowalk Watson, with forfeiture handled by Assistant United States Attorney Nicole M. Andrejko.
The Department of Justice noted that the Harris prosecution supports the National Fraud Enforcement Division, created April 7, whose mission is to investigate and prosecute those who steal or fraudulently misuse taxpayer dollars. That effort supports President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance, targeting fraud, waste, and abuse within federal benefit programs.