Randolph Man Receives 10 Years for Cocaine Trafficking and Firearm Possession

BOSTON — A Randolph man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Tuesday for cocaine trafficking and firearm possession, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

The sentencing concludes one strand of a multi-year federal operation that has produced a series of arrests targeting the Harvard Street Gang, based in Brockton, and its affiliates operating in Randolph. The defendant was convicted of distributing cocaine and possessing firearms in furtherance of that trafficking, per the Justice Department release.

The case forms part of a broader enforcement initiative focused on the Harvard Street Gang and its Randolph-based network. The operation has yielded multiple arrests aimed at disrupting the gang’s cocaine distribution channels and its documented use of firearms to protect its drug trade.

Exact figures on total arrests or volume of cocaine seized in the wider initiative were not detailed in Tuesday’s announcement.

The 10-year term replaces what would have been separate potential sentences on the drug and firearm counts. Federal sentencing guidelines treat possession of a firearm in connection with drug trafficking as a mandatory enhancement that extends time served.

The defendant must serve the full sentence minus any good-time credit, followed by supervised release. Sentencing occurred in U.S. District Court in Boston.

Downstream, the conviction and sentence remove one active participant from the Harvard Street Gang’s operational structure and trigger asset forfeiture procedures standard in such cases. Federal prosecutors must now decide whether to use information gained from this defendant in further indictments against remaining gang members.

The Bureau of Prisons will assign the defendant to a facility within 30 days, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts will continue to litigate related cases arising from the same investigation.

This sentencing is the latest public outcome from the Justice Department’s sustained focus on the Harvard Street Gang. The department has previously described the gang as responsible for cocaine distribution and associated violence in Brockton and surrounding communities south of Boston.

Similar federal sentencings of gang affiliates have occurred in the District of Massachusetts over the past two years as the investigation expanded.