BOSTON (WPRI) -- Providence Police Col. Oscar Perez's nephew has pleaded guilty to running a multistate fentanyl drug ring out of the capital city at the same time his uncles were climbing the ranks of the police department.

Jasdrual "Josh" Perez, 36, appeared Wednesday in Boston federal court wearing handcuffs and a beige jumpsuit. He changed his plea to guilty after more than two years of claiming his innocence.

There was no plea agreement with federal prosecutors, and Perez refused to cooperate in the investigation. His attorney, Jack Cicilline, said the decision has "been in the works for a long time."

"He specifically did not want to become a witness for the government in any respect," Cicilline said outside Massachusetts U.S. District Court following the hearing. "He's been working diligently for the past two years at Wyatt in becoming a new person."

Federal agents arrested Perez in February 2022 and accused him of leading a "robust long-running drug operation" that pumped the deadly illicit drug into the streets of several states, including Rhode Island and Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee.

Perez now faces a minimum of 10 years in prison, pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy with intent to deliver fentanyl. The maximum sentence is life behind bars. He will be sentenced on Nov. 12.

"At the time of sentencing, I think both the court and the public will see a different person than the person who was distributing drugs," Cicilline said.

As Target 12 first reported in April 2023, FBI agents had opened a separate investigation into whether Josh Perez's drug operation had benefited in any way from his family ties at the Providence Police Department.

His uncle, Oscar Perez, is the department's police chief. His other uncle, Andres Perez, is a sergeant who worked drug cases in the department's intelligence bureau.

FBI agents interviewed both uncles as part of their probe. Cicilline said he hasn't talked to either man about their nephew's case, but he said nothing in Josh Perez's file suggested the uncles had any involvement in the nephew's drug operation.

"Between the surveillances that were conducted in this case and the wire intercepts, there was no indication that he was near either one of them or that any one of them were in a position to assist him in any way," Cicilline said. "It just didn't happen."

The FBI has never made anything about its investigation public and no criminal charges have ever been filed. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday. Both uncles have denied any involvement.

"At the end of the day, he chose the wrong path," Col. Perez said in an interview last year. "It's not a reflection on us."

Josh Perez earlier this year hired Cicilline after parting ways with at least two other defense attorneys who represented him since 2022. Cicilline is one of Rhode Island's most well-known criminal defense attorneys, and he's the father of former Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline.

Attorney Cicilline said it's "unfortunate" that Josh Perez's relationship with the police officers has negatively affected their reputations.

"That's all it is -- a relationship," Cicilline said. "He got no information from them and they did not in any way encourage his activity."

A Massachusetts-based special federal task force started investigating Josh Perez in late 2019, gathering evidence against him for more than a year before raiding his Providence and Cranston properties in 2022. Federal agents asked several state and local police agencies to assist in the raid. They did not involve Providence police.

Perez initially fled the state to New York after catching wind the feds were trying to arrest him. He later turned himself and has since been held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls.

Federal officials accused him of running a drug crew of nearly a dozen people, who manufactured and distributed fentanyl for him and two other defendants in the case, Erik Ventura and Joel Santana.

Investigators said the crew pressed fentanyl into pills in Perez's Providence home and disguised them as pharmaceutical-grade Percocet or oxycodone. Federal officials used wire intercepts to record Perez boasting about how much money the operation generated.

"I sell drugs because I like this [expletive], dude," he said, according to court documents. "I may not receive payments for a whole month or a month and a half and that's okay because I have resources. When I collect, it's like a million and some."

Despite the size and reach of Josh Perez's operation, he never became a target of the Providence Police Department, even though it was known inside the department he was involved in drugs.

Cicilline said the uncles, "went out of their way to make it known to the family that they were upset with what they were hearing he was doing."

Josh Perez's only other run-in with the law happened in 2019 when R.I. State Police troopers spotted him in Warwick trying to get rid of a baseball-sized bag of cocaine, according to court records.

He later pleaded no contest to possession with intent to sell cocaine and received a deferred sentence of five years, 100 hours of community service and a nearly $1,000 fine, according to court documents.

Oscar Perez last year was adamant his nephew never received special treatment or protection, saying the department has no problem arresting offenders in Providence, even if it’s “relatives, people we know or people we grew up with.”

“This particular case, it just didn’t come onto the radar of the Providence Police Department,” he said about his nephew. “There were concerns, but he had his life – I had mine.”