STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — In November, law enforcement experts and community leaders warned of a new and increasingly deadly threat on Staten Island — fentanyl mixed with other dangerous substances.
Last week, a New Brighton man was sent to prison for just that.
Abraham Tarr, 32, of Richmond Terrace, pleaded guilty Nov. 25, 2025, to second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, in connection with a drug raid a year earlier.
Tarr on Thursday was sentenced to eight years in prison and five years post-release supervision by Justice Mario F. Mattei in state Supreme Court, St. George.
It won’t be his first time to prison.
In 2018, Tarr was sentenced to 42 months in prison for his role in a deli robbery in St. George, state records show.
When Tarr was asked Thursday if he wanted to say anything prior to being sentenced, he shook his head and replied quietly, “no sir.”
1K glassines of cocaine, fentanyl
On the morning of Nov. 27, 2024, police investigators carried out a drug raid at the Richmond Terrace apartments in New Brighton, near Richmond Terrace and Westervelt Avenue. (Google Maps)
Tarr was arrested on the morning of Nov. 27, 2024, as NYPD investigators carried out a drug raid at an apartment where he was staying in the Richmond Terrace complex on Jersey Street.
A search of the apartment yielded 1,000 glassines of a fentanyl and cocaine mixture, in addition to a large quantity of cocaine, scales, packaging materials and a large sum of U.S. currency, prosecutors said.
“Responsible for the death of hundreds of Staten Islanders in recent years, fentanyl has no place in our communities…” said District Attorney Michael E. McMahon in a prior statement.
He went on to thank members of the NYPD, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Edvin and “the men and women of RCDA’s Narcotics Investigations Bureau.”
Cocaine laced with fentanyl
Dangerous combinations of fentanyl mixed with cocaine, as well as other narcotics, are becoming more common in the drug supply and are causing overdoses on Staten Island, the borough’s Fentanyl and Overdose Task Force warned recently during a press conference at the district attorney’s office.
Experts over the years have cited several manufacturers and criminal organizations operating in China and south of the U.S. border as contributing to the fentanyl crisis.
Methods used to traffic the substance into the U.S. have included vehicles traveling over the southern border with several pounds of the drug secreted in the tires. Or in other cases mailed directly from China via purchases on the dark web.
The press conference on Staten Island came months after a 41-year-old woman deemed a “prolific” drug dealer on the borough’s North Shore was sentenced to eight years in prison for selling cocaine laced with fentanyl, and dog tranquilizer.