WASHINGTON - A 23-year-old District of Columbia man, Carlos Perla, has been sentenced to serve 97 months in prison to be followed by five years of supervised release for his role in a crack cocaine trafficking offense, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced today.

Perla, of Hyattsville, Maryland, received his sentence on January 13, 2009, before the Honorable Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia. Perla pled guilty in October 2008 to Possession with Intent to Distribute Cocaine.

According to the government's evidence, on June 25, 2008, at approximately 8:20 p.m., the defendant and an accomplice arrived in a silver, Nissan pick-up truck in the parking lot of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the 200 block of Riggs Road, NE, Washington, D.C. The defendant was seated in the front passenger seat and his accomplice was driving the car. Upon arriving at the location, the defendant weighed the cocaine on a digital scale and showed the confidential informant the crack cocaine that was inside of a blue plastic bag. The defendant possessed a large black handgun during the transaction.

After the narcotics were shown to the confidential informant, Metropolitan Police Department officers approached the car. Before they placed the defendant and his accomplice under arrest, the officers saw a loaded .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol on the defendant's leg. Additionally, the officers saw the blue plastic bag that contained the crack cocaine between the defendant's legs on the front passenger floorboard. The officers continued to search the vehicle, and they found a red cooler behind the driver's seat. Inside of that container, they found several grams of cocaine hydrochloride. An analysis from the Mid-Atlantic Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Justice - Drug Enforcement Administration revealed that the crack cocaine in the blue plastic bag weighed 63 grams, and the cocaine powder in the red cooler weighed 57.8 grams.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor and MPD Chief Lanier commended the outstanding work of D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Officers, Investigators and Detectives Alvin Cardinal, Franklyn Then, Joseph Abdalla, and Derrick Starliper of the Narcotics Special Investigations Division. They also thanked the assistance provided by supervisory paralegal and paralegals Kim E. Hall, Barbara Necastro, and Teesha Tobias. Lastly, they commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela S. George, who investigated and prosecuted this case.