Gainesville man sentenced to 90 years in prison for violating probation on 6 drug cases
Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Peter Lloyd Roman, Jr., 37, has been sentenced to 90 years in state prison after entering a plea of nolo contendere to violating probation on six drug cases.
Roman was arrested in August 2018 on 20 charges in five separate cases, mostly related to selling heroin or cocaine; the cases were based on purchases made by a confidential informant. At the time, he had two felony convictions and two misdemeanor convictions.
According to arrest reports, Roman distributed narcotics at Grace Presbyterian Church (3146 NW 13th Street) and at Sunoco (4207 NW 13th Street), which is within 1,000 feet of a daycare, leading to multiple charges of selling drugs within 1,000 feet of specified locations such as churches, daycares, and convenience stores.
Roman posted bail and was released, and two new sworn complaints were filed in February 2020 for selling crack cocaine to a confidential informant within 1,000 feet of a church and convenience store in 2019. Formal charges of selling cocaine were filed in July 2020 in those cases.
In July 2020, Roman entered a plea of nolo contendere to six counts of possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell (one count each from six of the seven cases; the seventh case was dropped), with the rest of the charges dropped as part of the plea deal. Judge Mark Moseley sentenced him to 28 months in state prison, followed by three years of drug offender probation. The maximum sentence for the charges was 90 years, according to the plea deal.
Roman was released from prison in June 2022 to begin serving his three years of probation, and on August 29, 2024, he was arrested after a search during a traffic stop reportedly produced about 260 grams of cocaine. A search of his residence reportedly produced about 470 grams of methamphetamine, some pills, and about $3,000 in cash. Roman’s house is about 500 feet from Williams Elementary School. He was also charged with violating probation by violating the law.
On October 11, 2024, a sworn complaint was filed against Roman, charging him with 10 felonies related to narcotics sales and firearm possession by a convicted felon. According to the sworn complaint, a search of a storage unit used by Roman produced almost $40,000 in cash, 11.83 pounds of methamphetamine, 230.4 grams of powdered cocaine, 15 grams of crack cocaine, about 200 prescription pills, four pistols, “numerous” rounds of ammunition, and equipment for manufacturing and distributing narcotics. Post Miranda, Roman reportedly admitted that the storage unit contained about 10 pounds of methamphetamine, cocaine, and four firearms. That case is still open.
On November 12, Roman entered a plea of nolo contendere to violation of probation in the six cases, and Judge James Colaw sentenced him to six consecutive sentences of 15 years each, for a total of 90 years. Roman has appealed the sentence.
Good riddance!
Have fun in prison. Good job Judge Colaw.
bye bye, tats
Colaw is undoubtedly the best judge in this county.
Death penalty is more appropriate.
Though that’s more than a lot of drugs and he’s definitely NOT smarter than a fifth grader it still seems crazy that his sentence is longer than that of a brutal murder charge… Make it make sense
Don’t miss the whole story – the first judge gave him a sweet plea deal with 28 months in prison and lots of dropped charges. After serving his time, instead of turning his life around, he went back to doing the exact same thing, and a second judge gave him the maximum sentence on the original charges. So you have to compare his initial plea deal to the murder plea deals, not the final sentence after he thumbed his nose at his second chance.
I Believe the 1st judge who sentenced him signed the Last search warrant to make up for his mistakes. Ain’t no telling what kinda of other crimes he’s committed that can’t be proven. Oh all these Drugs and you don’t know where or who you got them from bam 90 years and life on the new charges.
The average convicted murderer has taken one life. Drug dealers like this guy kill way more people and ruin countless lives, in addition to inflicting other huge costs onto society. This guy got a second chance he should have never been given, and proved that he will never stop.
so very true and well spoken
Please! These addicts will get high from whoever & however. By any means necessary! Never the sellers fault for providing for themselves or their families. It’s life! Really the states only made they missed out on money. They don’t care about the lives lost or ruined that you speak of. All about the Benjamin’s
His life’s ambition has been reached.
Did those judges really believe this guy would not violate probation?
Send him to El Salvador
Great, so he’ll enjoy free housing for life at taxpayer expense. I’ve heard stories of how drug rehab programs some are offered as alternatives to jail don’t quite work out for various reasons, which might include purposely making it easy to fail or get kicked out of those programs. Maybe that’s by design?
Dude’s responsible for his own actions, of course, but it’s important to understand that among other controversial things, GEO Group (a Florida-based private prison conglomerate) has bankrolled Republican politicians in order to help assure harsh drug laws remain on the books. A report by that group is available on Jacobin with excerpts, and it’s pretty insidious what they want to do:
“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, the expansion of alternatives to incarceration and detention, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by criminal laws,” says the report. “Any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional or detention facilities to house them.”
jacobin (dot) com/2022/10/gop-governors-cannabis-pardon-private-prison-donors-profit-drug-war
In other words, they want government to keep drug laws strict even for relatively minor offenses related to say marijuana in order to be able to keep prison cells full and thus make money.
I don’t see how any of this is relevant to this guy’s case.
There is no universe where 10+ pounds of meth is a ‘relatively minor’ offense. He made his living as a drug dealer selling poison into our community. He got a chance to go straight and he chose not to. Now he goes back to jail to stop him from plying his chosen profession.
Who knows how many lives and innocent families he’s destroyed. Whatever it costs to keep him in prison is probably a lot less than the social costs of his activities on the outside.
It was for informational purposes to share details about what motivates the government to jail even casual offenders for minor drug offenses. Sometimes it helps to look at things from a few steps back to see more of the moving parts.
We are all citizens of our nation and under its government. We ought to know how those parts affect people both in and outside our immediate family and friends.
Thank you for bringing attention to this crucial issue. We need to mitigate the bad incentives of private prisons by 1) more aggressively pursuing the death penalty for most major crimes (and certainly for repeat offenders) and 2) using corporeal punishment as a mean to dissuade criminals from recidivism.
I mostly agree with you.
The only niggling point for me is allowing the state to commit capital punishment, mainly because of those not so few times they’ve made mistakes and executed people who later turned out to be innocent.
Just foul! Such a dirty world! Such a crooked system!
Be out in 6 months
Doubt it Colaw gave a guy 25 years for smoking a blunt and failing a drug test on probation he’s about in for ten years now no reversal original sentence was 5 in 5 out.the 5 in turnt into a 30 year complete sentence. Off a plea deal.