Joshua S. Levy, U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts
A Boston man, Derek Rego, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton for escaping a residential re-entry center where he was completing his federal sentence for drug distribution. This sentence also includes violations of supervised release related to a prior federal conviction.
Rego, aged 37, will serve an additional eight-month term concurrently with the escape sentence due to violations of his supervised release terms stemming from a previous federal drug trafficking conviction. He pleaded guilty to one count of escape in September 2024 after being indicted in September 2020.
In 2012, Rego received a 120-month prison sentence for cocaine distribution. On January 8, 2020, he was moved from a correctional institution to a residential re-entry center (RRC) in Boston to serve the rest of his sentence until June 5, 2020.
Before this transfer, Rego signed a furlough application in October 2019 acknowledging that he remained under the custody of the Attorney General while on furlough status. During his time at the RRC, Rego was allowed to work and had employment. However, on March 25, 2020, after reporting that two co-workers tested positive for COVID-19, he was directed to quarantine for two weeks at an approved location and was informed about random checks during this period.
Rego initially complied but failed to return to the RRC by April 9 as required. An attempted spot check on April 3 revealed that he could not be contacted at either his temporary pass site or via phone. He remained missing until May 4 when he was arrested in Boston on unrelated domestic violence charges which were subsequently dismissed.
The announcement regarding Rego's sentencing was made by United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Brian Kyes, United States Marshal for the District of Massachusetts; and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Suzanne Sullivan Jacobus, David G. Tobin and Lauren Maynard from the Major Crimes Unit.
