Ernest Brown

A Buffalo man already serving a 25 year to life sentence for murder has been sentenced to 14.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to drug crimes in Jamestown.

U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo announced Wednesday that Ernest Brown, a/k/a Wayne Perry, a/k/a Wayne Brown, 43, Buffalo, was sentenced 175 months in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 400 grams of fentanyl. by U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. Brown’s federal sentence will be served consecutive to the sentence of 25 years to life that he received after an Erie County Court jury convicted him of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in 2025.

During the drug conspiracy, Brown was a source of drugs for Joseph Zaso. Zaso met Brown through co-defendant James Jackson, a middleman for narcotics transactions. Brown met his co-conspirators at various locations in Buffalo, including Zaso’s and Jackson’s residences in Buffalo. At times, Jackson delivered fentanyl to Zaso on behalf of Brown.

Around the same time Brown was active in supplying drugs to Zaso, he was charged in the murder of Devin Lockwood in Buffalo. On Saturday, July 22, 2023, at 3 a.m., Buffalo Police officers responded to a reported shooting on Genesee Street near Mortimer Street. Three people were found shot outside of a tavern. Two victims, a 33-year-old male and 44-year-old male, were taken by ambulance to ECMC where they were treated for non-life threatening injuries. The third victim, 31-year-old Devin Lockwood, was pronounced dead at the scene. Brown was sentenced in September.

Zaso was previously charged and convicted and is awaiting sentencing. Investigations into Zaso’s drug ring in the Jamestown area resulted in charges against 21 people ranging from Jamestown, Buffalo, Rochester, Binghamton (who was living in Georgia when he was charged) and Olean.

Zaso, also known as Joey Cracks, was first federally indicted on June 7, 2022, with using and maintaining a drug-involved premises and distribution of fentanyl. He is still awaiting sentencing after previously pleading guilty, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The original indictment said that between September 2018 and May 2022, Zaso and Denver Komenda conspired to possess and sell heroin and fentanyl. Zaso is also accused of using a residence on Locust Street in Jamestown to conduct drug trafficking activities, including the distribution of large quantities of heroin and fentanyl. At the time Zaso had been on supervised release after being sentenced to 60 months in a federal prison after pleading to a federal drug charge in Michigan. The supervised release was transferred to the Western District of New York. In addition to the 2015 federal drug charge in Michigan Zaso had several arrests and multiple felony convictions that included two drug-related felonies, according to a 2022 federal court decision that allowed the government to incarcerate Zaso while awaiting trial on his Jamestown charges.

Additional charges against Zaso were announced in November 2023 that include brandishing firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and document concealment of material fact, for allegedly lying on his monthly probation reports while under the supervision of U.S. Probation. Prosecutors added a second Jamestown address to the previous 12 Locust St. address in the first indictment, with an address on Fairview Avenue also used for drug trafficking.

The case was part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The task force is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. The task force’s operation in Buffalo includes agents and officers from Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations, Department of Homeland Security Emergency Removal Operations, Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Diplomatic Security Service, with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua A. Violanti and Louis A. Testani prosecuted the case against Perry. The sentencing is the result of an investigation by the Jamestown Police Department, under the direction of Timothy Jackson, former city police chief, and current Chief Scott Forster, the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge Farhana Islam, New York Field Division, and the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office, under the direction of Sheriff James Quattrone.