Sanford Cocaine Dealer Sentenced to 25 Years in Federal Prison

Orlando, Florida – Terrence Denard Perkins (46, Sanford) has been sentenced by U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron to 25 years in federal prison for possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The court also ordered Perkins to forfeit hundreds of rounds of ammunition and more than a dozen firearms, including AR-style rifles, handguns, and a machinegun. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe made the announcement.

Perkins was found guilty by a federal jury on November 20, 2025.

According to court documents and testimony and evidence presented at trial, agents with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office’s City/County Investigative Bureau (CCIB) were conducting a narcotics investigation when they learned of a planned narcotics robbery at Perkins’ stash house in a residential Sanford neighborhood. The agents obtained and executed a search warrant that same day for the stash house, which was occupied by Perkins’s elderly stepfather. Inside the house, agents located an electronic money counter, revolvers, and a loaded AR-15 semiautomatic rifle concealed behind a sofa cushion.

In a backyard carport, agents located bags of cocaine along with a cocaine cutting, packaging, and distribution station. Next to the packaging station, on the hood of Perkins’s vehicle, was another loaded AR-15 and a MAC-10 handgun wrapped up in a t-shirt. Hidden inside one broken down car in the backyard, agents recovered more AR-15s, handguns, an AK-47 rifle, a machinegun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Inside another 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. 

Through their subsequent investigation, federal and state agents and investigators uncovered witnesses, financial records, DNA evidence, videos saved on Perkins’s stash house surveillance system, and Perkins’s own social media posts which showed that Perkins has been trafficking and distributing kilogram-quantities of cocaine in Sanford for years using cartel-linked suppliers. 

Bricks of cocaine, firearms, and cocaine trafficking paraphernalia seized from Perkins’s house

Perkins is a seven-time convicted felon, including convictions for conspiracy to traffic cocaine, possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, and aggravating fleeing and eluding.

“Central Florida residents are much safer with violent criminals like this individual behind bars,” said ATF Tampa Field Division’s Acting Special Agent in Charge Cheryl Harrell. “This complex investigation is a direct result of the outstanding collaboration between the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office City County Investigative Bureau, the DEA and federal prosecutors.” 

This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office’s City County Investigative Bureau (CCIB), with assistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Richard Varadan and Michael P. Felicetta.