NYC kingpin nicknamed ‘Ghost’ who ran $10K-a-week drug ring is back on streets after Biden commutation

NY Post ^ | 2/17/25 | Joe Marino, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

[Libloather]

A Times Square drug kingpin nabbed in an “around-the-clock” crack-peddling operation is back on the streets of the Big Apple — thanks to former President Joe Biden, The Post has learned.

Johnny Perez, a 32-year-old convict nicknamed “Ghost,” was one of nearly 2,500 convicted federal criminals who had their sentences commuted by Biden on Jan. 17 before he left office — including at least three other dealers busted with him in 2021, records show.

Federal prison records show that Perez, who was one of eight suspected drug dealers rounded up in a raid by the NYPD and federal agents, is listed as due for release in May — but he is no longer behind bars.

Authorities called the brazen, $10,000-a-week crack operation a “24-hour open-air bazaar operating in around-the-clock shifts at 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue.

“One ‘shift’ arrived in the late morning and made sales through the late afternoon, and then other defendants arrived and sold through the evening and nighttime,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a press release at the time of the arrests.

“Although there was no set composition of defendants for the two shifts, defendant Aaron Starks was often present and overseeing the first shift, and defendant Johnny Perez was often present and overseeing the second shift,” according to the release.

Perez was sentenced to eight years in federal prison, while Starks was hit with a sentence of six years, according to online records — before both had their sentences trimmed by Biden.

“This falls in line with the prevailing mindset — everyone who comes into the criminal justice system must be a victim,” one frustrated law enforcement source told The Post.

[Libloather]

They never did find out who belonged to that bag of White Hut coke. Let's go Brandon.

[Bob434]

he wasnt a very good ghost if he got caught

[Tpa girl]

He must be Hunters dealer while in New York

[oldtech]

Joe Biden may think he has escaped punishment, but it will sooner or later catch up to him, & I hope it is sooner because I’d like to be around to see it happen.