The Chelsea East Facet Cash gang member indicted for recklessly taking pictures right into a crowd exterior an Everett nightclub in 2015, killing a 21-year-old mom, will spend greater than six years in federal jail for drug dealing.
U.S. District Courtroom Chief Choose F. Dennis Saylor IV sentenced Henry “Junior” Del Rio, 28, to 78 months in jail to be adopted by three years of supervised launch on costs of conspiring to distribute fentanyl and cocaine.
“The dangerous and recidivist nature of Defendant’s offense cannot be overstated,” federal prosecutor Michael Crowley wrote in a sentencing memo. “Within approximately 18 months of being placed on supervised release in connection with his conviction for multiple federal felonies … Defendant was back dealing drugs (including fentanyl, cocaine base and cocaine) with fellow East Side Money Gang members and doing so with a loaded firearm.”
Del Rio and his co-defendant, Jose Perez, led Lexington Police on a high-speed chase — reaching 85 mph on residential streets — a bit earlier than 11 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2022. It ended when Perez, on the wheel of the Ford Explorer leased to Del Rio, collided right into a Prius with at the least one passenger inside after which careened right into a fence earlier than coming to a cease on the fringe of a Cease and Store parking zone, in keeping with the sentencing memo.
Lexington Police noticed Del Rio drop an object as he bought out, which was a loaded Glock that had been reported stolen months earlier. The 2 suspects fled, with Perez swiftly getting arrested and officers discovering drug baggies strewn alongside Del Rio’s flight path as they pursued. They discovered a further baggie within the Explorer’s central console after nabbing Del Rio.
Perez was convicted for his half within the crime in August 2024 and sentenced to 142 months, or 11 years and 10 months, in federal jail that December.
Homicide
Del Rio has earlier East Facet Cash Gang-related federal convictions for racketeering, firearms and drug distribution. He was additionally indicted in January of final 12 months for the first-degree homicide of Ashlee “Penny” Berryman, a 21-year-old mom of a 3-year-old son, in 2015, a case had gone chilly till final 12 months.
Berryman was not the goal. As an alternative, in accordance prosecutor David Solet, the chief of the Middlesex DA’s Chilly Case Murder Unit, Del Rio bought right into a verbal argument with two males exterior the Braza Grille nightclub in Everett a bit earlier than 1 a.m. on Aug. 13, 2015, after which “raised a 40 caliber semi-automatic firearm and fired repeatedly at two men.”
The bullets went wild and really struck one of many males, but in addition the entrance window of a pharmacy, the roof of a passing automobile and, lastly, the again and coronary heart of Berryman.
Del Rio pleaded not responsible. A jury trial scheduled for Friday has been rescheduled to Might 19, in keeping with court docket data.
Courtesy / Middlesex DA
Ashlee Berryman (Courtesy / Middlesex DA)
