Former owner of Usual restaurant agrees to 14-year sentence in drug arrest
Photo | Grant Welker
Kevin Perry, who owned The Usual restaurant before he was arrested on drug charges, has plead guilty.
The former owner of The Usual restaurant on Shrewsbury Street in Worcester will serve a prison term of 14 to 16 years for an array of drug and money laundering charges, according to his plea agreement filed Friday.
Kevin Perry, a 43-year-old Worcester resident, was arrested in March and charged with nine counts of money laundering, three counts of aggravated cash structuring, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and one count of distribution of fentanyl, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston.
According to a plea agreement on file, Perry has agreed to a prison term of 14 to 16 years, five years of supervised release and forfeiture nine properties, vehicles, and nearly $2 million.
Sentencing, however, will take place in Jan. 11, according to court documents.
The U.S. alleged Perry used more than $1 million he made from selling steroids, cocaine and fentanyl from April 2012 to October 2016 to buy and renovate nine properties in Worcester County, including The Blackstone Tap and The Usual (which has since reopen as the Chameleon).
He also allegedly used the funds to pay for his wedding in 2015.
In 2005, he was convicted in federal court in Massachusetts of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute MDMA, or ecstasy, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was sentenced to time in prison.
When he was released in 2008, he began making and selling the drugs to fund his Worcester County businesses. During his supervised release between 2008 and 2014, the only employment he reported to the U.S. Probation Office and IRS was as a fitness trainer earning about $4,800 a month.
The Usual, at 166 Shrewsbury St., closed earlier this year, but the space reopened in June as The Chameleon, which is co-owned by former employees from The Usual. Stacey Gala, Perry’s wife, is a silent partner.
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