Perry Freeman knew the fentanyl he was selling in and around Yorktown was dangerous, warning customers not to inject it.
But the Mohegan Lake resident still kept dealing the drug even after a dose killed Brian Cobb five years ago.
Freeman, 40, was sentenced Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas to just over 24 years in federal prison. He had pleaded guilty in February to distribution of fentanyl, conspiracy to distribute cocaine base and felon in possession of ammunition
On Nov. 10, 2021, Cobb, 37, bought fentanyl from Freeman and ingested it at a friend's home. Soon he got into his car, turned the ignition on and passed out, his foot still on the accelerator. The car got so hot it caught fire and Cobb died in the flames.
His cause of death was ruled acute fentanyl intoxication and accident.
Cobb grew up in Putnam Valley and was living in Yorktown, working as a parts manager at Nissan. He had been planning to buy his longtime girlfriend an engagement ring that day and propose to her on a yearly trip to Disneyland that was coming up.
Cobb's parents, sister, brother and best friend attended the sentencing. His sister Christina Cobb told Karas her older brother was "smart, funny, stubborn, protective and full of life" and that it has been devastating to join the many families destroyed by the fentanyl epidemic.
"It didn't just take Brian's life; it stole the future we were supposed to share," she said. "It stole the comfort of knowing he was out there in the world. It stole the chance for him to grow old, to find happiness, to become everything he was meant to be.
"It even stole the version of me that existed when he was still alive. I am not the same person anymore. Grief has changed me in ways I never asked for and never wanted."
She said she struggles with "anger, heartbreak, confusion and loneliness I never knew before" and has sometimes reached for the phone to tell him something before "reality hits me all over again."
"His absence is everywhere, in the empty seat at family gatherings, in the silence where his laugh should be, in the future milestones he will never be here for," she said.
Anthony Massaro said he continues to struggle with the loss of his best friend since 5th grade, the guy he considered a brother who "was more than what happened to him."
"There is a permanent emptiness where he used to be," Massaro told the judge. "The person Brian was, his energy, his personality the way he lifted people up, is gone forever and we feel that every single day."
Freeman had been selling fentanyl in small red glassine envelopes for months to a confidential informant working with an undercover officer. And after Cobb's death he sold to the CI at least two other times, according to the criminal complaint by Yorktown Detective James Hannigan, a DEA Task Force member, who spearheaded the investigation.
Freeman's home was searched in March 2022, and investigators found ammunition, the red envelopes with drug residue and drug paraphernalia. Freeman was arrested in November 2023.
Freeman spoke briefly, apologizing to Cobb's family and recalling his short friendship with a man he called "friendly and generous...kind and caring."
"I really liked Brian," he said. "I am the one to blame. I wish I could turn back time."
In court and in an earlier letter to Karas, Freeman said he would commit to no longer have anything to do with drugs.
"I regret this path that I have gone down," he wrote. "I let down my family especially my son by eliminating myself from their lives."
The prison term Karas imposed was on the low end of the 24 to 30 years sentencing guidelines he had to consider but was not bound by. A guideline sentence was requested by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Arad, citing the need for deterrence and Freeman's calculus between "what's the risk someone could die and how much can I make?"
"He made the wrong choice," Arad said. "He knew it was a huge risk after someone actually died and he continued (to sell drugs)."
Probation recommended 15 years. Federal defender Ben Gold asked for 10 years, saying the guideline sentence was excessive and more appropriate for someone who commits intentional murder.
"It matters that Mr. Freeman's intent was not to be violent or cause this unimaginable tragedy," Gold said, adding later that "to treat it as if Mr. Freeman knew Mr. Cobb was going to die goes entirely too far."
But Karas emphasized that the guidelines was based less on Freeman's sale of fentanyl than his lengthy criminal history of drug, weapon and robbery convictions. He acknowledged the rough childhood Freeman had, of an absent father, drug-addicted mother and early involvement with drugs himself leading to his addiction. But unlike his siblings who grew up in the same environment, Freeman "missed opportunities to not use childhood as a crutch."
He agreed that Freeman had no intention of killing Cobb but that what happened was "a foreseeable consequence of (his) recklessness."
"He knew there was a chance someone would succumb to this lethal substance," Karas said. "It was foreseeable in Mr. Freeman's eyes given what he was selling that this could happen."
Christina Cobb said afterwards that she believed justice was served for what she had earlier called Freeman's "indifference, selfishness and cruelty." And she agreed with the judge when he recommended to the family that the best way to honor her brother's memory was to move forward, "to hold your heads high ... pursue your dreams."
"Brian would have wanted that," she said. "He hated when people cried."
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Federal prison term for Yorktown man who sold fatal dose of fentanyl
