Ismael Roman

Introduction

Ismael Roman, also known as “Poochie,” 47, of Hartford, was sentenced on October 14, 2026 by U.S. District Judge Sarah F. Russell in New Haven to 60 months of imprisonment and four years of supervised release for a cocaine trafficking offense and for violating the conditions of his supervised release from a prior federal conviction. The sentence, announced by United States Attorney David X. Sullivan for the District of Connecticut, came thirteen months after Roman was arrested outside a Hartford apartment where investigators were watching a would-be buyer assemble roughly $52,000 in cash to purchase several kilograms of cocaine. Roman, who has been detained since that arrest, pleaded guilty on June 1, 2026 to attempting to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

Background Information

The case against Roman grew out of a January and February 2026 investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Hartford Task Force into Jose Colon, also known as “Uncle Benny,” who investigators determined was attempting to purchase several kilograms of cocaine and was holding a large amount of cash to complete the deal. Investigators arranged a meeting with Colon at his residence on Pearl Street in Hartford for February 19, 2026. Prior to the meeting, investigators observed Roman — carrying a backpack — and an associate enter Colon’s apartment. A short time later, after a court-authorized search of the residence revealed approximately $52,000 in cash concealed in a small cooler inside the backpack, Colon, Roman, and the associate were all arrested.

Roman’s presence at the deal carried extra legal weight: he was on federal supervised release at the time. In October 2022, he had been sentenced in Hartford federal court to 41 months of imprisonment for a cocaine trafficking offense, and the release he was serving when the task force watched him walk into Colon’s apartment was the supervised-release tail of that conviction — meaning the February 2026 arrest triggered both a new prosecution and a revocation of the terms meant to keep him clean.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and sentenced. Roman pleaded guilty to attempting to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and was sentenced on October 14, 2026, with the sentence also resolving his supervised-release violation. The account below reflects court documents and statements made in court.

The February 19, 2026 operation captured the transaction at its midpoint: cash assembled, meeting set, and the buyer’s residence under a court-authorized search. Roman’s role in the frame was the backpack — the bag that carried the small cooler holding roughly $52,000 in concealed cash into the apartment where the kilograms were to be exchanged. The guilty plea to attempting to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine reflects the deal’s scale rather than a completed delivery: the attempt itself is the offense, and the five-hundred-gram threshold puts it in the sentencing range that produced a five-year term. The supervised-release violation, charged alongside the new offense, ensured that whatever sentence Roman received would account for both the new crime and the breach of the trust he was still serving under from the 2022 conviction.

Colon, the buyer the task force built the case around, separately pleaded guilty and awaits his own sentencing — a disposition that will land after Roman’s and will close out the February operation’s cast.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Sullivan’s office, which detailed the DEA Hartford Task Force investigation — a unit drawing personnel from the DEA Hartford Resident Office, the Connecticut State Police, and the Bristol, Hartford, East Hartford, Enfield, Manchester, New Britain, Rocky Hill, Wethersfield, and Windsor Locks police departments. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Reed Durham.

The consequences stack: a 60-month sentence for the new cocaine offense, four years of supervised release to follow, and the supervised-release violation resolved within the same sentencing — meaning the 41-month term he received in October 2022 for his prior cocaine trafficking offense now functions as history inside a longer arc of custody. Roman has been detained continuously since the February 19, 2026 arrest, so the eight months between arrest and plea and the further four to sentencing all count against the five-year term. At 47, with two federal cocaine convictions on his record, the 60-month sentence carries him into his mid-fifties before supervised release begins.

Current Status

Roman is serving a 60-month federal prison term imposed by Judge Russell on October 14, 2026, to be followed by four years of supervised release. His guilty plea to the attempted possession charge is a final conviction, and the sentencing resolved the parallel supervised-release violation from his prior case. He has been in custody since February 19, 2026. Jose Colon, the buyer whose cash-filled cooler anchored the case, has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing — the one open thread in the operation that took Roman down. No further charges against Roman were announced.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Roman’s February 2026 arrest came while he was still inside the federal system’s supervision from his October 2022 cocaine sentence — and the outcome shows what a second strike costs. The new conviction for attempting to possess five hundred grams or more of cocaine with intent to distribute, layered on the violation, produced a five-year term that begins from custody credit he has largely already served, then hands him four more years of supervised release at age 52. A second federal drug trafficking conviction effectively forecloses the employment and housing paths a supervised-release term is supposed to support, and any future contact with law enforcement now reads against a pattern: 2022 conviction, 2026 revocation and reconviction. The “Poochie” nickname that follows him through the court record now belongs to a two-time federal defendant.

Sources

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Connecticut, “Hartford Man Sentenced to 5 Years in Federal Prison for Cocaine Trafficking Offense,” October 14, 2026 — source